


Caged

by StayBriizee



Series: The Pritchard Family [4]
Category: Devil's Gate - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-09-21 08:42:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17040518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StayBriizee/pseuds/StayBriizee
Summary: Originally a city girl, you make a trip out to the countryside for some much-needed time to yourself; time away from the hustle and bustle of life at home. Planning to make this an extended stay, you familiarize yourself with the town and its people, looking for work and a place to stay. While assessing your options, one man in particular catches your eye; and you catch his. How much truth is there to the adage that one meeting can change the rest of your life?





	1. Keep Me Company

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is a chapter fic based around the main character in Devil's Gate, Jackson Pritchard. I'm gonna go over a couple things about the fic compared to the movie, so if you haven't seen the movie or want to be completely surprised, don't read this!!
> 
> As a general note, this work is rated as explicit because of where I know later chapters are going. That being said, the first several chapters will be Mature at most, but Reader Beware. Also, I chose not to use archive warnings because this work is going to toe the line. Explaining now would lead to some major spoilers, so I'll explain more in the notes of later chapters.
> 
> Also, as a note for all of my fics: there are probably definitely typos, but I don't like proofreading, and we don't have to talk about it
> 
> ***
> 
> So, if you've watched Devil's Gate, you're aware that Jackson in the movie is actually a body snatched alien; I didn't put that in this fic, and decided to keep Jackson as a completely human farmer. I also added a lot of my own backstory, including family and original characters, that weren't in the movie. This is my very long way of saying I took inspo from the movie on the canon character and ran in a completely new direction with it, and sold my soul in the process okay thanks for reading!!!

New. Everything was new. The motel room you stood in had been worn with time, the hardwood floor damaged and scuffed by flecks of sand and dirt, white paint aging and cracking on the walls. The sheets were clean, a grandiose deep red, but ornate and outdated in a way that reminded you of being wrapped up in the arms of a doting grandmother. The things around you had lived a fuller life than even yourself, seeing more people, holding more secrets, endowed with more stories to tell. Even so, it was all new to you. The window in front of which you stood had a perfect angle of the sun, whose rays flinted over your eyes and warmed your face. You closed your eyes and drummed your fingers against the windowsill to soak in the sensation. It was quiet here. Quieter than city life had ever been.

Several days had passed since your arrival in town, and more days still since the wear and tear of life at home had driven you out. Family and friends had accused you of abandoning them, and abandoning the life you had, like a child running away from home. You saw it differently. You weren’t running away, you just thought some time alone could do everyone some good. Time to let animosities subside, to allow the passage time to heal everyone. You knew you couldn’t heal at home. You knew time needed time to do its healing. And you knew that meant finding someplace safe and far away to lay your head.

You open your eyes again and look out at the land in front of you. Greens and browns saturated the ground, with a stretch of road cutting the landscape in half. The sky was painted blue, with the golden sun perfectly centered where you stood. You sigh and reach in your back pocket for the pen and notepad you’d carried around since you’d left. In it, you’d written down every housing and job opportunity you could find in town. The town was small and quaint, so opportunities were limited; most everyone who lived there had been born and raised and had already found their niche. Regardless, you’d found a handful of people willing to take you in or let you work, and in some cases, both. Today had in store your last place to scout before you decided where your final stop would be.

You let the sun warm you for a little while longer before turning to leave. You pat your front pocket to assure you have your keys and hear their stiff, muffled jingle against your leg. You grab your purse, which was resting on the foot of the bed, and lock your motel room door behind you. Your room was already close to the front desk, with easy access to the innkeeper, with which you’d built a rapport.

“Mrs. Stafford,” you called out, peering forward toward the front desk. “Mrs. Stafford, you there?”

From an office behind the front desk comes Mrs. Beatrice Stafford, the middle aged inkeep you’d been talking to every day since the first. She gave you a bright smile and pushed her tightly coiled black hair from her face before wiping off and putting on her glasses. She walked up to you and rested her crossed arms on the desk between you both.

“You know, I have a bell up here for a reason. It ain’t gonna bite you.”

You laugh lightheartedly through your nose and ring the bell once. And again. And again, five more times, before speaking.

“How was that?”

Beatrice peered over her thick wire framed glasses before smiling and shaking her head. “A little smart alick of you,” she said, pushing her glasses back up with her finger, “but it’ll do. What can I do for you, sweetheart?”

You pull out your notebook and pen, place it on the desk, and flip it open.

“I was wondering if it’d be alright if I talked to you about some of the people I’ve met in town so far,” you started, clicking your pen, “or at least about the place I’m gonna check out today.”

Beatrice nodded and gestured with her hand. “Sure, go right on ahead. As long as you decide to take my offer at the end of it.”

The major stores in town had enough staff as it was, which pigeonholed your search to a few local jobs with modest pay. Housing options didn’t prove much better; you weren’t looking to buy a home, and there were no apartments to speak of. A motel, a hotel, or the rooms of generous renting families were your options; the last of which tended to be the least expensive.

You began to move through your list of options with Bea at the front desk, who happily lent you her point of view.

“There’s the Rowan family, the ones who set up at the farmers’ market. They have a job open to me there, but not a place for me to stay.”

Mrs. Bea paused in thought. “They’re a nice enough family. Church goin’ folks. Probably for the best you don’t stay in their house, though. It’s a big family. Can get like a pig sty in there, I swear.”

As Bea spoke, you wrote her commentary down in your notebook.

“Here, I like this one. There’s a job opening at the bar. No place to stay again, but Ms. Nix seems like my kinda girl.”

Bea peered over her glasses again and sucked her teeth.

“Mm-hmm. That sounds about right. You’re both a couple of young free spirits. She’s the closest thing to city life you’ll find in this town. You’d fit right in, if you’re alright with gettin’ some glares of disapproval from some of the more devout churckfolk ‘round here.”

As you write, you sigh and shake your head.

“That’s the kind of thing I came here to get away from.”

Bea taps your hand and squeezes it in hers momentarily.

“Sweetheart, lemme tell you. There ain’t no place you can go that ain’t nobody gonna judge you. You find people who don’t judge you, not places.”

You scan your eyes downward to the next name on the list.

“So if I’m looking for a place to stay with no pressure or judgement, I probably shouldn’t take that job at the church with the Dovers. All they’d need me to do is clean and set up for services. And they do have a place for me to stay.”

Mrs. Stafford peeked over the desk at your outfit. When your sneakers, shorts, white tank top, and black leather jacket were all in her sights, you heard her sigh through her nose before settling back behind the counter.

“You don’t strike me as a church goin’ girl, and if I can tell, they can tell. They preach a lot about it not being their place to pass judgement, but by the end of the week, they’d be asking you about getting baptized and taking communion. Hittin’ the bible every night. You’d get miserable. Hell, sometimes, I get miserable. You can name any bible verse in the world and they’ll recite like it’s nothin’.”

Despite the offer of a place to stay, you draw an “X” next to the Dovers on your list. You’d gotten enough of that sickening pressure to be perfect at home. You didn’t need a job to remind you how far below someone’s expectations you were.

You continue through your list with Bea, chatting now about places you could stay. Bea’s motel, another motel in town run by Ms. Nottingham (“She’ll be nice for first impressions, but she ain’t nothin’ but an old witch, God forgive me”), the home of Mr. McBride (“He must be awful lonely, his wife passed, and his only daughter moved away”), the Pattersons (“They’re a nice, quiet bunch. They’d do anything to help someone in need), the Oakes (“You couldn’t even pay me to live with them”). Finally, you got to the last name on your list, who you planned to visit today.

“Okay, just one more. How about Mr. Pritchard? He’s offering a job and a place to stay. I haven’t met him yet, but I saw a sign out front.”

“Oooh, he’s a handsome fellow,” Bea said with a suggestive smile. “Very handsome. I’d stay in his house for many reasons. Whatever he needs.”

“Mrs. Stafford.”

“Alright, okay, Lord forgive me. Jackson’s a very nice man. Raised in the church by his daddy, but he’s not all overbearing about people around him being in the church, as long as they respect what he believes. If you ask me, that’s the way it should be. Really, he ain’t been too overbearing about anything lately. He’s very quiet nowadays, runs his errands, tends to his farm and his animals, pops into town to say hello or attend service sometimes. He lives out of the way of pretty much everyone and everything, but he’s still a sweet man. And still handsome.”

After writing down some of Bea’s words, you laugh and tuck your notepad and pen back into your purse. “No offense to him, but I doubt he’s my type.”

Mrs. Bea raises her eyebrows and again sucks her teeth, drumming her nails on the desk as you walk towards the door.

“Mmm. Alright. We’ll see about that. You come on back here after you’re done, lemme know whatcha think then. Stay safe, darlin’.”

“You too, Mrs. Stafford.”

With that, you head out of the motel and into your car, listening to the hum of the engine after turning your key, and the comfort of cool air against your face as a relief from the hot, stagnant air the car had trapped from sitting in the sun. You faced a thirty-minute drive from here to the other side of town, where you’d first passed by Mr. Pritchard’s home.

As you drove, you began to see the land change like a gradient. The thick green vegetation, the bright pop of fruits and vegetables growing in farmland, animals roaming about their ranches, old but charming houses, buzzing markets and stores, the towering steeple of the town’s primary church; all of these sights gave way to more browns, more tans, more dying vegetation. Nearing the end of your drive, you were hard pressed even to catch a glimpse of a struggling patch of grass growing on either side of the road. Instead, the scenery had become sandy, dusty, rocky, and gasping for life. The paved road had now become more uneven and unforgiving, jostling you and your car back and forth in a dizzying sway, until the gravel disappeared, and gave way to a flat dirt road.

As the road gives way to dirt, you begin to see the land transition back to something livable. Patches of green begin to coalesce into a distant assortment of greens to your right, surrounding a tall, dark, and fenced off house. Driving closer, you can see cropland and animals strolling and grazing in the green towards the back and sides of the home, segmented by a dry, dirt laden expanse facing the road. Also facing the road, you see a picket sign stuck into the ground. Against the white of a slab of stiff cardboard, you read, in bold red lettering, “HELP NEEDED + VACANCY AVAILABLE”. With no discernable driveway, you pull into a patch of dirt, off to the side of what you assume to be the front door. You step out of your car to the sound of a dog barking distantly within the home. Closing your car door and locking it, you look the home up and down. It’s darker than many of the homes closer to the center of town, and a great deal larger, towering at least two stories.

As you walk toward the front door, you catch a jerking movement above you. You sharply look back up toward the second story windows, and can see a curtain swaying back and forth. You pause to stare, trying to catch a set of fingers, a pair of eyes, before shaking off a creeping onset of jitters and stepping up to the front door. After three solid knocks, you hear an increasingly intense cacophony of barks from inside the house, but hear no movement. Several long moments pass, with tapering barks, and with no answer.

You step away from the front door and off of the porch to survey the outside of the home for a car, and can see a worn down pickup truck parked near a shed in the back. You look back up towards the window whose off-white curtains had been swaying, and can see them sway with more vigor than they had been before. You quicken your breath and feel your heart pound against the walls of your chest, but step back up to the front door and knock four more times, again summoning an onslaught of barks, this time, paired with the shuffling of footsteps. The steps grow louder and louder towards the door until the door swings open to the sight of a large, brooding man, with his dog standing anxiously by his feet. His short black hair fell in strands on his forehead, and a thick dark beard covered his jaw. His green-brown eyes, hit directly by the sun that sat behind both of you, were partially shrouded with furrowed brows. He wore a dark blue plaid button up with black pants, both of which were somewhat worn and dirty, in a way that mirrored his home and land. But he smiled gently, in a kind, albeit somewhat confused way, with his head cocked to the side.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, miss. What can I do for you?”

You glance toward the picket sign at the front of the home and back at him. He follows your glance and smirks, but stays quiet for you to speak.

“Would you happen to be Mr. Pritchard?”

“Depends. A couple Mr. Pritchards have lived here. You got a first name, too?”

You open and rustle through your purse for your notebook and grab it. As you pull it out, you lose your grip and send your notepad fumbling to the wood of the porch with an embarrassing slap. You can hear a light chuckle from Mr. Pritchard, as you kneel down and grab the notebook, dusting it off, and flipping it open to see what you’d written down from Bea.

“Umm… Jackson. Jackson Pritchard?”

“That’d be me.”

You regain your composure and straighten your back before you continue.

“I saw the sign you had out front for needing help and having a vacancy. I’m new in town, and need a job and a place to stay. I thought I’d ask.”

Jackson scratches his beard beneath his chin, and looks you up and down momentarily before speaking.

“Mmm. I don’t know. Y’don’t plan on droppin’ my belongin’s the way you dropped that notebook of yours, d’you?”

You flash a sheepish smile and laugh, and dust off your notepad some more.

“No, sir, I do not.”

Jackson nods and whistles sharply, pointing towards the inside of his house. His dog, large and pointy eared, shuffles back inside as Jackson steps out and closes the door behind him.

“Alright. I can give you a tour of the place, n’ you can see if you’d like t’stay here n’ work for me, if that sounds like somethin’ you’d be interested in.”

“I’d very much appreciate it.”

Jackson smiles and nods again, his large, solid body descending his porch steps one by one. You follow behind as he walks toward his crops, laying in neat rows to the home’s left. You couldn’t identify much other than tomatoes, whose vines coiled snake-like around their metal cages. The rest of the crops bore their leaves, full and vibrant, erupting from mounds of rich, dark earth.

“I’m surprised anything can grow like this out here,” you remark, eyeing the lush bushes of green, which lay everywhere, patch after patch.

Jackson kneels to the ground and rustles through one of these bushes, picking a couple small fruits.

“You’d be surprised what you c’n get to grow out here,” Jackson says, standing again and walking back towards you. “Give anything enough care an’ attention, an’ it’ll grow how it’s s’pposed to. Open your hand for me, darlin’.”

You hold out your hand as Jackson cups his own hand beneath yours. A chill runs from your fingers, up your hand, and up still toward your arm at his touch, despite the intense warmth of his hands. With a lightly controlled grip on your hand, he brings up his other hand into your own. From it, he drops a strawberry.

“Believe me, it’s hard work gettin’ land like this to give something fruitful,” he says, uncupping your hand and eating a berry that remained in his own hand. He twists the leaves and stem from his mouth and tosses them to the ground, then motions for you to try the ones he’d given to you. You oblige, picking up the berry by its stem, positioning it with your tongue, and sinking your teeth into it. You feel a trickle of juice run down your chin, while the rest explodes and settles in your mouth as you mirror Jackson, twisting out the stem and leaves and tossing them into the dirt. The fruit is sweet, juicy, tart, and satisfying, all at once. Your mouth still full, you nod towards Jackson in approval as he smiles kindly, motioning his head for you to follow him.

“But reaping the harvest is well worth the work.”

Jackson shows you the rest of his farm, from his shed, to his barn, to his animals. His prides and joys were his chickens and cows, which provided him with food and a source of income. Also under his care were several horses and sheep, and all the animals had their own fenced off patches of land away from the crops, on the other side of the house.

“No pigs?” you questioned, as you and Jackson stepped back up onto the porch to head inside. Jackson turned slightly before opening the door to his home.

“Nah,” he started, holding the door open for you to enter. “I like t’ raise animals that can give me more th’n just meat. Chickens can give me eggs. Cows can give me milk. Sheep got wool. Pigs don’t offer much else other than meat, eatin’ food, an’ givin’ company. I leave raisin’ pigs t’ other folks.”

With Jackson’s arm outstretched to hold the door open for you, you enter his home. Everything inside was as dark as the outside had been. The walls were dark, the floor was dark, the furniture was dark. As Jackson closed the door behind both of you, the light from the open door that illuminated the darkness before slowly faded until it was no more. You hesitated your first few steps, not simply on account on the dark foreboding color scheme of the home, but because of Jackson’s dog, sitting and staring intently at you as you entered the room. After locking the door, Jackson turned to see your frozen figure, then glanced to see his dog sitting ahead of you.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I never properly introduced y’all. This is Earl. He looks all big an’ bad, but he’s well behaved. He won’t bite.”

Allowing several seconds for Earl to sniff your legs and hands, towards which he simply huffed and walked away, you take a few hasty steps to catch up with Jackson, who had now walked into the living room.

“Mr. Pritchard?”

Jackson turns to face you, his eyebrows raised, with a “Mmm?” raising out of his throat.

“Not to sound rude, but I was wondering what I’d actually be doing here. What the work would be, the pay, where I’d sleep, and all that.”

Jackson glanced at his watch and adjusted it on his wrist, then looked up at you and smirked.

“Very down-to-the-point you are. I see. Alright.”

He cleared his throat.

“I wouldn’t expect you to do much out in the farm, unless you want to, or wanna learn. Most’a the help I need is here, in the house. Cleanin’ up, cookin’, tendin’ to the things I can’t tend to when I’m out in the yard.”

In your notepad, which you’d taken back out now, you wrote as Jackson answered your questions.

“Like a maid?”

You hear Jackson exhale deeply through his nose, looking upward as if to gather his thoughts. He shifts his weight on either leg before looking back downward, his eyes now transfixed on you.

“If you’d like to put it that way.”

“And pay?”

“I can do around fifteen hundred a month.”

You stopped your pen mid ink stroke and look up at Jackson, who has his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, but not in the same way he’d greeted you. His demeanor felt more serious now to a degree you weren’t expecting in that moment.

“Fifteen hundred? One thousand, five hundred a month?”

“That low for you, city girl? I can go up to two thousand.”

“No. No, not at all it’s uh… It’s the highest offer I’ve heard in town so far. Not including rent, anyway.”

You watch as Jackson slowly dusts off his hands before folding his arms, using one hand to stroke at his beard.

“Mmm. Figures you’d be keepin’ track of pay. You wouldn’t owe me any rent. As long as you were working here, your work would be your rent.”

You catch yourself in an excited but bewildered confusion as you write in your notebook. You didn’t want to be so bold as to ask how he has that kind of money, or why he’d decided to pay you so generously, for fear of messing up a good thing.

“And where would my room be?”

Jackson’s eyes wandered up toward the staircase behind him as he began to walk.

“Well,” he said, planting his foot firmly on the first step, “I feel like that’s the part you won’t be too keen on. May I be so bold as to as your permission to show you the rest of the house first?”

You click your pen and place it within the spiral rungs of your notepad, following Jackson toward the stairs.

“Lead the way.”

As you walk, you take a final glance at the kitchen and stairs. Above the stove in the kitchen hung a cross, and hung to the living room walls were still several more crosses; one light and wooden, one silver, and another hanging above the television was dark polished wood, on which was a gold figurine of Jesus Christ, his arms outstretched as he was crucified. On the wall adjacent to the staircase was a collage of photographs, some old with dusty, worn, or makeshift frames, some new and glossy; some dull and yellowed, and others in more full, vibrant colors. One photo caught your eye as you walked, of an older man and a young boy, neither of whom you recognized. They seemed to be standing in front of the home you found yourself in now, but before you could examine it any further, you already noticed Jackson halfway up the stairs. You quicken your pace by several steps to catch up, with his booming, heavy steps amplified as the bounce off the walls. Some steps give way to a creek, from both yourself and Jackson, but soon, you meet him at the top of the stairs.

Jackson first showed you the bathroom, which was what one would expect in a home like his own; a tub, a shower head, a toilet and a sink. Not ornate or pristine, but functional.

“This is the one I usually use,” he remarked, closing the bathroom door and heading toward another door nearby, “There’s another restroom downstairs, you cou’d use that one as yours.”

The next room was study-like, with a tall bookshelf nearly reaching the ceiling, but coming short enough to rest another crucifix on top, this one identical to the brown and gold one in the living room. In the bookshelf itself, you could spot several editions of the bible, and several more books on which you could read the spine. “How God Leads us to Righteousness”, “The Crucifixion of Jesus”, “To Show Others His Salvation”, “Leading the Lost”. A desk sat facing the window, out of which you could see one sheep grazing in the pasture below.

“I don’t use this room for much,” Jackson says, looking around at the bookcase, the desk, and some of the clutter around the room, “’cept reading sometimes, when I have the time. But you’re welcome to read anything you like if you stay. An’ even if you don’t, you c’n come by an’ borrow some. Not sure you’ll fancy the readin’ selection. Lot of it’s religious. But some ain’t.”

As you leave his study, you peek down the hallway into a room with a cracked open door. Four quadrants of light lay on the floor, partially illuminating the foot of a large bed. On the face of the closest bedpost, you can see the etching of a cross. On the walls lay the dark silhouettes of a collage of crosses, crucifixes, and plaques. At their center was a large painting of Christ, looking downward, his arms clasped in prayer.

“Is that your room?”

Jackson, who had turned toward a different door, looks behind himself to see you and follow your gaze. Seeing the room you’re looking into, he walks past you, the air from his movement caressing your cheek, and closes the door, before walking toward where he’d been standing before.

“Nah, that ain’t my room. Judgin’ by your face, I s’pose you’re glad it ain’t yours, either. It’s a room someone stayed in a long time ago. They ain’t here no more.”

You nod with a coy smile as the jingle of Jackson’s keys fills your ears. You feel a faint knot in your stomach, a turning and churning, but ignore it.

Jackson’s wide, full frame and his rugged work-worn hands turn a key and push open the door before him, revealing a separate bedroom, smaller than the one he’d shown you before. A Queen-sized bed was pushed up against the wall shared by the door. The comforter, light blue and white, in stark contrast to the home, draped evenly long all sides of the bed. In the center of the headboard lay a single white pillow.

Religious memorabilia hung most anywhere your eyes could settle. Crosses, crucifixes, plaques with quotes from scripture, were spread sparsely along the expansive walls, aging and whitish, but not as pristine as the sheets on the bed. The figures were not crowded nearly as dense as the bedroom Jackson had hastily closed off. Even so, everywhere your eyes fell, you could see something connected to faith.

The floor was light, faded, and wooden. Across the room was a pair of windows, and between them, a dresser drawer. You walked up toward the leftmost window, draped over with an off-white curtain, and peeked out of it. In perfect view from your vantage point was the front porch.

“I do have to apologize if you like the view in this room,” Jackson said with an air of lightheartedness, “’cause this here’s my room.”

You turned and felt your heart thump against your chest, as Jackson was several steps farther into the room now, standing just in front of you with crossed arms. You gasp sharply and rest your hand on your chest, a sight that delights Jackson as you hear a bellowing laugh from his mouth.

“I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he starts, laughing again as you regain your composure, “but you city folk do scare up real easy.”

You breathe in deeply and sigh, shaking off another onset of jitters before laughing yourself.

“Yeah. I guess so. No, it’s a nice room, I like it. Maybe a little too…”

“Religious?”

You look up at a plaque resting on the wall above Jackson’s bed. Encircled with paintings of vines and apples, it reads,

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Isaiah 41:10”

You look back at Jackson and cross your arms, stretching your body while teetering on your toes, then resting your feet on the floor again.

“Yeah. Religious. I mean, I don’t have a problem with religion, but I’m just not really-”

Jackson raises his hand for you to stop speaking, and you oblige, your words halting in your throat as you wait for him to speak.

“You don’t have to explain darlin’, I understand. Romans 14:1. Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. You ever heard that one?”

You shake your head, and Jackson sucks his teeth.

“Mmm. Well, just take it as, even if you ain’t religious, it ain’t my place t’ debate it with you. I’ll still let you stay here all the same. All I ask for is your respect.”

Jackson’s eyes scan you momentarily, looking down at your shoes, moving upward to your legs, your thighs, your shorts, your chest, back up to your face. He shakes his head and smirks, again motioning his head for you to follow.

“C’mon. We still got a few rooms to cover.”

With that, Jackson leads you back downstairs, showing you just a few remaining rooms. A downstairs bathroom, a storage room for tools and feed for his animals, another study, and a closer survey of the living room and kitchen. As you walk, you notice Earl watching you, intently, unmoving, standing in front of a heavy latched door in the kitchen. Jackson singles out a key from his key ring and unlocks this very door, motioning his hand for Earl to step aside. Along with the key for the knob is a turning deadbolt and two chain latches, all of which Jackson unlocks in succession.

“Would this be my room?”

As he turns the knob, Jackson smiles at you and holds the door open.

“Yeah, it is. I hope all the locks and everything don’t have you too put off. It’s nothin’ weird, I just used to keep some animals in here. Couldn’t have ‘em gettin’ out. But the room’s cleaned up real nice for a guest, now.”

Looking past the door you can see a set of descending stairs, leading to a massive basement underneath. With every step downward, more of the room reveals itself to you. On the far wall, across from the stairs you know stepped down, was a generously sized Queen bed pushed into the corner. The comforter was a plain, deep red, while the sheets were black; the bed frame was a dark polished wood, devoid of any carvings. The walls were plain and concrete gray, while the floor was paved with dark polished wood, similar to that of the bed frame.

The walls held none of the religious trinkets that marked the rest of the house; save for a curious arrangement in the far wall’s second corner.

Stepping from the last step and onto the floor, past a long workbench centered in the room, you see a large cage with chains inside, a padlock holding it’s swinging metal door shut. Walking closer toward it, you see a bible resting on top, closed, with a bookmark peeking from the end. You pick it up, running your hand over the dusty cover, smelling the lightly rusted, metallic sharpness of the cage. The cover is mahogony and leather, unadulterated, and as you examine the book’s back cover, you hear Jackson’s voice reverberate through the room.

“I know you said you ain’t really religious,” he said, stepping up to stand next to you. A waft of the smell of dirt and sweat, rugged and manly but not nauseating, followed him. “But have you ever read the bible?”

You rub your thumb against the embossed gold letters, “KING JAMES”, and trace the bold gold cross on the center of the cover with your fingertips.

“Bits and pieces,” you start, setting the book back down, “but never the whole thing.”

You look again at the cage before you, gripping one of the thick metal bars in your hand.

“What kind of animal did you keep in here anyway?”

Jackson runs his hand long the top of the cage, his fingers drumming along the metal as his hand runs back and forth. “A pig, actually.” he said with an exhale through his nose. “I know I said I don’t keep ‘em, an’ I don’t. But someone had a pig they couldn’t take care of. Causin’ problems, runnin’ amok, so they gave it to me. I took care of ‘im. Mellowed ‘im right out. Didn’t always keep ‘im down here, ‘f course. Only when he was bein’ difficult and needed some time alone.”

You turn toward the large mirror on the wall adjacent the cage and look at yourself, with Jackson standing beside you, his hand resting on the bible you’d held before. Your frame feels swallowed by Jackson’s; as you stood closer to the unlit corner of the cage, Jackson stood farther back, closer to a window that hugged that basement’s ceiling. His body was illuminated, showered in a faint ray of light. He licks his lips and shifts his weight, after which you begin to feel a lump grow in your throat. As you open your mouth to speak, Jackson cuts through the uncomfortable silence.

“You know, since you did go through all the trouble of comin’ out here, might I cook you up somethin’ for your trouble?”

You turn from the mirror to face him, his face still warmed by a ray of light from the window.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Mr. Pritchard-”

“No, no, darlin’, it’s alright. It’s the least I can do for makin’ you drive all this way.”

Jackson smiles at you before stepping back toward the staircase. You follow, and sitting at the top of the stairs, can see the silhouette of Earl, backlit by the light filtering in from the kitchen.

You sit down in a kitchen chair, worn and wooden, not unlike the rest of the house. You watch him as he begins to pull ingredients from different nooks in his kitchen. Spices in one cupboard. A sack of rice stored in another. Pots and pans in cabinets beneath the counter. He opens his fridge and pulls out fresh broccoli, vibrant enough to have been picked days, even hours ago. Then comes a container of ice, on top of which sits two wrapped fish, whole and head on.

“You get fish around here?”

Jackson washes his hands, letting the water drop from his fingers before drying them on a nearby towel. He sets up his food on the counter, brandishing a knife from a silverware drawer, you hear a laugh rise from his stomach.

“You’d be surprised. This town don’t even look like it can grow a blade’a grass, let alone have fish. But it finds a way.”

As he speaks, you watch him unwrap the fish from its plastic wrap, scale it, and begin to gut it. His hands and his knife, coated in blood, cut off the head and tail, pull out the innards, and begin the same on the second fish. You watch him intently, his blue sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his shirt untucked, his forearms and hand bulging with several large veins.

“Since this is a job offer and all,” Jackson says, bearing his knife down with a thud to cut off the head of the second fish, “why don’t you see what you can do with that broccoli and rice. Consider this a uh… performance review.”

You smirk at him, eliciting a smirk back from him. You take the broccoli and a couple cupfulls of rice in a pot with you to the sink. You rinse the broccoli first, watching the dirt fall from the green florets, streams of tainted water falling in trails down your fingers, into your palm, before it is whisked away down the drain. You rinsed the rice, over and over again, the water shifting from a talc laden starchy white, to lighter, lighter, lighter, until the water rippled clear.

Cutting. Chopping. Boiling. As your knife passes through each stalk of broccoli, you feel the anxious weight of eyes tracking your movements. You stretch out your arm to throw trash in a bin. Another arm stretches to reach for a pot. Your arm comes back to place the florets of green in that pot as your body swivels to place the pot on the stove. Every movement felt burdened by Jackson’s watchful eye, made heavier still by the silence of him not moving. With both pots on the stove, rice beginning to simmer and broccoli soon to steam, you turn to meet Jackson’s gaze. When you turn, you see him facing his fish, cut now into four filets, breaded as he reaches for a bottle of oil.

With the sun on the cusp of its journey to set, you eat with Jackson over casual conversation. He asks curiously about your life in the city, and you answer him honestly. You say what you were used to. The young crowd partied, drank, hooked up, broke up; the ebbs and flows of an un-Christian lifestyle were your normal. Jackson listened quietly and ate as you told him about the things you’d seen and done, until you leave him and opening to respond.

“You certainly picked a strange town to come to after livin’ like that.”

“You’d think so. I liked that life. I just needed some time to try something new.”

Jackson twirls his fork in his fingers, chewing and contemplating his response. With a swallow that you could see bulge in his throat, he set his fork down and folded his arms on the table. His eyes stared into yours, his brows furrowed and bushy, as he bit the inside of his cheek.

“May I ask you somethin’?”

You nod.

“I know you said you ain’t really religious, you ain’t really read the bible. But I was wonderin’ if you ever been to church.”

You grab a napkin and wipe your mouth and hands clean before answering.

“I have,” you start, “but not in a long time. That’s not a problem, is it?”

Jack laughs lightly, his cheeks, reddened from is work in the sun, bunching up at the corners of his mouth.

“No, it ain’t a problem,” he said, picking up his fork and beginning to twirl it again, “I was just curious. I gotta say, though, not much else happens in this town other than goin’ to church. I certainly haven’t lived anything close t’ the life you have. My daddy raised me in the church.”

He fell silent momentarily, struggling over the last few words. He closed his eyes and sighed, then opened them, shaking his head.

“Anyway, I’m sure if you’re lookin’ for somethin’ new, ‘r at least somethin’ different, you’ll find it here.”

You finished your meal with Jackson, full now as the sun was setting. The sky had darkened, from a vibrant cloudless blue to a gradient of reds, oranges, yellows, and pinks. You stood on the porch, your purse under your arm, face to face with Jackson. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his sleeves still rolled up. The hairs on his arms glistened in the sunset’s light, as well his face, caressed by a pinkish hue.

“I’m glad you came out to see me. I know it was business, but still. I’d like to thank you for sharin’ a meal with me. Keepin’ me company.”

“I enjoyed your company just as well, Mr. Pritchard.”

Jackson smiled, full with pearly white teeth, before looking down to hide his grin. He kicked away a small rock that was on the porch before speaking again.

“You decided if you might take the job?”

You smiled and turned back toward your car, turning back to Jackson who was now looking up at you expectantly.

“I’ll sleep on it. But I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

As you turned to leave, you felt a hand caress your elbow to turn you back around. You felt Jackson’s warm hand pull you back with a gentle leading tug, while his other hand cupped your free elbow. He squeezed them both lightly and bit his lip.

“Would you mind terribly if I gave you a parting gift? In case you don’t swing by again. I’d just like to give you somethin’ to show you how much I appreciate you takin’ time out of your day for me.”

You smile up at him, and he kindly smiles back.

“You’re very sweet, Mr. Pritchard. No, I wouldn’t mind.”

With that, you see Jackson recede back into the dark house, leaving you standing on the porch. You look out at the yard, and more distantly into the horizon at the sunset. You followed the view of the road you came in on, until the rest of it was lost in the distance. You felt the sun again on your face, weaker now as it set, but still as warm and comforting as it had been this afternoon.

Soon, you hear the patter of footsteps, increasingly loud, heading back towards the porch. From the shadows of the house came Jackson, holding a case and a small book in his hand. He extends his arm, reaching out for your hand, and you meet him halfway, allowing him to cup his hand underneath yours. His hand lingers, his fingers wrapping around your hand, and his fingertips grazing your wrist. He gives your hand a light squeeze, then places a small box of strawberries in your palm, and on top of that, a pocket-sized edition of the bible.

“I know you said you’re not religious, but I don’t have much t’ offer other than bibles and some food. I saw you enjoyed the strawberries, though, so I suggest you don’t eat ‘em all in one sittin’. Next time I might be inclined to charge.”

You look up at him, into his eyes, which reflected the darkening light of sunset. Your face felt hot and flush as he looked back at you, as you felt his hand gripped under yours, with the beating of both of your pulses rising and falling against your skin. You watched Jackson lick his lips as you both looked at each other for what felt like hours. You felt a tingling in your lips; a yearning growing in your stomach as your body leaned forward, slowly, cautiously, toward Jackson. You could feel Jackson’s body beginning to lean forward just as well, his eyes deepening in color as they came closer into view.

Suddenly, Jackson exhaled sharply and took a step back, clearing his throat and looking down at his shoes and giving your hand one last squeeze before putting his hands back in his pockets.

“It was very nice meeting you,” he said with a to-the-point nod and a shy smile. “I hope to have your company again.”

You smile back, beginning to step toward and descend the porch steps.

“You too, Mr. Pritchard.”

Sharing one last gaze, you turn back toward your car, anxious to begin the long drive back to your motel. You set your gifts in your passenger seat and back out back onto the road. Before you turn your car back in the direction from whence you came, you get a final look at Jackson, who stood stoic on the porch, his hands in his pockets, his face no longer hit by the rays of the sun, but instead shadowed by the roof, as Earl, who had now come out of the house, sits next to him. You give him one last wave, and he mirrors you before motioning Earl back into the house, wiping his face with one hand and adjusting his belt against his waist before receding back into his home.

By the time you return to your motel, the gradient light of sunset had depleted into the deep blue onset of night. You push open the motel door and immediately can see Bea, with a full and expectant smile.

“So,” she starts, her arms again crossed on the desk as they had been earlier, “Handsome or what?”

You sigh out a laugh and stand at the desk to respond.

“He is handsome, I’ll give him that. Very sweet too, you were right.”

“He must’ve taken a liking to ya if he’s givin’ ya gifts already.” She pointed toward the box of strawberries and bible you held in your hands.

“You know, if you woulda stayed out any longer, I woulda thought you really went and did something.”

You laugh again, but weakly, remembering the tingle in your lips and heightening of your pulse that Jackson’s touch had left you with.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Bea.”

“Goodnight, darlin’. Don’t let all that charm of his get you sucked in though, now. You still gotta come here and work for me. Not swoon over a farm boy who gave you some fruit.”

“I’m sleeping on it, Mrs. Bea.”

You pull out your room key and finally enter your room, setting your purse on the bed, and the strawberries on your nightstand. The room was almost entirely engulfed by darkness until you turned on your bedside lamp, it’s feeble halo of light giving you just enough illumination to examine the second gift Jackson had given you.

You hold the bible and use your thumb to quickly turn through the chapters. Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Amos, 1st Corinthians; you couldn’t remember the last time you’d seen these chapters, these words, these verses, or held them in your hands long enough to read. As you get to the back cover, you hear a metallic jingle, and see a foreign bulge in the back pocket of the book. Reaching into it, you pull out a chain with a cross charm, all a brilliant untouched gold that sparkled, reflecting the light from your lamp.

Walking into the bathroom, turning on the light there to face yourself in the mirror, you hold the necklace in your palm. You stroke and trace the cross with your fingers before unclasping it, draping it over your chest, and clasping it again behind your neck. The cross fell perfectly over your heart, and you examined it, and yourself, in the mirror. You held the charm again in your palm before letting it drop once more, with a gentle thump against your chest.

You took off your shorts to get comfortable, along with your leather jacket, but left your white tank as you climbed into bed, ready to rest. Turning off your bedside lamp, you reach into your gifted box of strawberries and pull out one. Setting the bible back on top of the box, you began to spread your body across the sheets, you glanced over at the bedside clock, which read exactly 7:00 P.M..

You stretched out your arms, your fingers stretching lazily toward either edge of the bed, over the deep crimson sheets, your feet together, reaching out toward the foot of the bed. You stare up at the ceiling with drooping eyelids, and feel your heart beat against the cross you now wore. You took a bite of the strawberry you held in your hand, and felt its red juices burst in your mouth with one faint trickle down your chin, as had happened this afternoon. With your finger, you traced your wettened lips, reminded of Jackson, with a biting anxiousness in your stomach to see him again.


	2. Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The town has treated you well, with plenty of warm hospitality. Many of those job offers sound nice; but none quite as nice as as the two-in-one room and employment with Mr. Pritchard. First impressions are everything, and Mr. Pritchard seems to be keeping a close eye on you. Are you up to par?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always: there will almost definitely be typos, but if i proofread i die instantly

Several days had come and gone since your visit to Jackson’s home. Sunday afternoon had now arrived, but the blazing afternoon light was marred by dense, shrouding cloud cover. You laid in bed, your clothes already on, with two bags already packed and ready by the door.

As you laid in bed, your eyes fixed securely on the unlit light fixture on the ceiling, you pondered what life might be like on Jackson’s farm. You thought about the house, its dark outside, its graying walls. You thought about the land, patches of brown and green interwoven with spots of red, blue, and orange from his crops. You recalled the sound of animal limbs shuffling through grass and on top of hay, the smell of fresh, rich, dirt, and how it mixed with the barnyard-y scent of those animals with each blow of the wind, rustling through every blade of grass your eyes could see. You closed your eyes and inhaled deeply to remember the scent of the home, old and lived in, and licked your lips, remembering the taste of crisp fried fish, tender grains of rice, and broccoli so vibrant and green that it rivalled the still-growing crops just outside the kitchen window. You remembered the basement where you’d say, a massive room all to yourself, and a far cry from the quaint motel room that had been your home for a week.

Jackson’s home provided an air of peace that no other place had provided. Its distance from the center of town forced some inevitable inconvenience, but the value of having peace, finally, some peace from everything, was enough to outweigh the tax of an inconvenient drive.

Eyes still closed, you again placed yourself back on the farm, listening to the howl of the wind, the crunch of grass beneath your feet, and the house, the calming dead silence of that house. You could practically hear the creaking of the stairs and the splash of running water from the faucet, and the hum of its simplistic appliances. But most notably, you remembered Jackson’s voice, deep and rumbling, but kind. You remembered the way it bounced off of the walls, the way you could feel it reverberate through your bones with every word that rose from his throat. You remembered some of the words he spoke to you, with those words drifting past and falling away as you imagined them behind your closed eyelids.

“Give anything enough care an’ attention… it’ll grow how it’s s’pposed to… That low for you, city girl?… It’s good t’ see you again, Mrs. Stafford… Nah, I ain’t been up t’ too much… She here?”

Your eyes snapped open as you quickly shuffled in bed to sit upright. You glared at the door, listening through the walls to catch the sound of that familiar voice again.

“Nah, I ain’t seen ‘er since she came up to see me the first time. She take your job?… Mmm. Sounds sorta like a game show, don’t it? With us all lyin’ in wait to hear ‘er decision.”

Up now from your bed, you stood at your nightstand, rustling through your purse until you could see the bible Jackson had given you. You then feel around your neck, your fingertips met with the cool metal of the cross you still wore around your neck. You weren’t sure why you wore it; you’d made it clear to several people you weren’t overtly religious. And yet, like an insistent omen of faith, hung that cross, over your heart, dull in the dimness of the room.

You listened still to the murmur of voices just outside at the front desk, Jackson’s voice overtaking the room full and robust, while Bea’s remained shrouded in more reserved pleasantries.

The motel room door swung open into the hallway as you shuffled your two bags outside before looking back into the room. You looked for anything you’d forgotten to take with you, but saw nothing; nothing but that red ornate bed, two nightstands, and that window you so fondly stared out of for what felt like miniature eternities. You left the room just as you had found it a week prior; aging and humble, but inviting. You stood still momentarily, struck with the realization that this may be the last time you stay in this room. You tried to take in everything; it’s color, it’s smell, it’s feeling, knowing there was a chance you wouldn’t see it again.

“Hey, city girl, that you?”

You were pulled out of your momentary gaze by that familiar voice yet again, and turned immediately toward the front desk to see Jackson, clad in an all-black suit, the suit jacket draped over his arm. He turned away from Bea and toward you, and you likewise lugged your bags toward the front desk.

Jackson looked down at your packed bags, then at you, toe to head. Before you could respond, Mrs. Stafford began to speak.

“I can see you don’t plan on stayin’ around here with me, huh?”

You set your bags down at your feet and smile at Bea.

“No, ma’am. But I can’t thank you enough for letting me stay here with you.”

“Y’know, Bea and I were just talkin’ about you,” Jackson started. He changed his leaning position against the desk to a more postured stand, shuffling his suit jacket up his arm. You look at his veined hands and can see a large silver ring wrapped around his right ring finger. He begins to twirl it as he speaks.

“We were talkin’ about how you got everybody in town wonderin’ where the city girl’s gonna end up. You gonna break the mystery for us today, little lady?”

You glanced at the floor to find your words before looking up at Jackson again. He had a smirk on his face as he waited for you to answer.

“Would you mind if I asked you something first?”

“I s’pose not.”

“What’s up with the extra nice clothes?”

Jackson looked down at his outfit and laughed, adjusting his tie, which was also silky and black.

“Well,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets, “It’s Sunday, darlin’. I came into town for service. Just got out a little bit ago.”

Jackson leaned again on Bea’s desk, his eyes wandering up and down before he spoke again.

“Now, how ‘bout yourself? Where’re you headin’ off to?”

“Actually, I was heading out to see you,” you said, motioning toward your bags. “I’m ready to accept the job.”

Jackson smirked and nodded, then looked over at Bea, who was peering at you over her glasses, her arms crossed on the desk.

“Looks like I won the contest, Mrs. Bea.”

Mrs. Bea scoffed and shook her head, tapping her nails against her desk. “On account of those good looks, no doubt. And that nice suit.”

Jackson chuckled and rung the bell on Bea’s desk self-congratulatorily, before being met with a swift slap on the wrist from Mrs. Bea herself. He stood again and licked his lips, putting his hands back in his pockets.

“Regardless of the why, I can’t help but feel a little honored, sweetheart. Tell you what. I was just about t’ head home anyway, so we c’n head out together, if you like. I lead, you follow.”

You nod and agree, and hear Mrs. Stafford’s feet shuffling against the floor as she emerges from behind the desk to stand between yourself and Jackson.

“Well, before you two head out too far for your little rendezvous, least y’all can do is be hospitable and give me a hug.”

“You know, it ain’t like we’re gonna be gone forever,” Jackson said, leaning down to hug Bea, who was shorter and wider than he, “We’ll still be poppin’ into town plenty.”

Beatrice squeezed Jackson, then turned and walked over to you, her arms extended.

“Oh, please,” she said, pulling you in close for a hug. Your chin rested in the crook of her neck as she squeezed. “Your house is practically on the other side of the world. I’ll be lucky to see you two in months. At least invite lil’ old me to the wedding.”

As Bea pulled away from the hug, you heard Jackson laugh, this time lighter and gentler than before. He took his draped suit jacket from his arm, folding it lengthwise and throwing it over his shoulder. As you began to kneel down to pick up your bags, you saw Jackson extend his arms and walk toward you.

“I’d be happy to carry those out for you, darlin’. It’s no trouble.”

As Jackson rolled up his sleeves to pick up your bags, you glanced over at the bell on Mrs. Bea’s desk. You ring it a couple times, for old times’ sake, and look up to see Mrs. Bea’s kind, warm smile. And with that, you parted ways.

Your purse clutched under your arm, you walk out of the door behind Jackson, who had already begun to walk toward your car. As he nears closer to it, you dig your keys from your purse and pop the trunk for him.

“Didn’t realize you remembered what my car looked like,” you comment, meeting him now at the trunk of your car. He hoisted your first bag up and into the trunk before smiling.

“A car like that is hard t’ forget in a town like this,” he joked, wrapping his fingers around the handle of the second bag. “And maybe I had a feelin’ you’d be comin’ back anyways.”

Jackson closed your trunk with a swift mechanical thud, your car bouncing gently on its back tires at the force. You wrap around to the driver’s side of your car, and Jackson follows, standing in front of you as you lean back against your car. He reaches his hand out toward your chest, scooping your cross into his fingertips. You feel the warmth of his hand against your chest, and the cool metal of his ring pressing against your collarbone. You look up at him, his brows tilted downwards, and his face shrouded by the shadowy clouds.

“Where’d you get this?”

“It was in the back pocket of that bible you gave me. I wasn’t sure if you meant for it to be there.”

Jackson nods, biting the inside of his cheek as his thumb strokes against the cross. You can feel your heart beating against his hand with a familiar nervousness that had first reared its head on his sunset porch.

“It suits you. Looks pretty on you.”

Before you could open your mouth to respond, you felt drops of rain fall from the sky and onto your face. Jackson looked up, heaven bound, your cross still gripped in his fingertips.

“It always sorta feels like a sign from God when it rains, don’t it? Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.”

As he spoke, still more light droplets of rain fell down upon you, your arms, your chest, and your face. Drops of rain began to meander down Jackson’s face, running down from his forehead and becoming lost in his beard, a stray few dripping down his chin. He licked his lips, several drops of rainwater collecting on the tip of his tongue before he lapped it back into his mouth and careened his head back down to look at you. You feel his hand snake its away around your hips, each finger squeezing lightly up your hips as they pass. His other hand comes up to your face, as he wipes the raindrops from your nose and cheek with his thumb. His thumb strays down from your nose, to your cheek, down toward your lips, which he parts open gently before settling his fingers beneath your chin.

His warm breath beats against your lips as he leans forward. Soon, you feel the scratch of his thick, dark beard against your face as his rain-wettened lips touch yours in a gentle, caressing kiss. You feel his hand squeeze your hips as he kisses you again, his tongue this time lapping into your mouth as you grip onto his belt. A pang of guilt washes over you but swiftly subsides, obscured by an intense wanting as Jackson pulls you closer toward him, his hand now gripped behind your neck, his thumb stroking your jawline. You tug on his belt to bring him closer to you, and can feel him, hard against your body as a growl escapes his throat. You slide your hand down to squeeze him in your hands, but feel Jackson’s hand grip around your wrist just as your fingers grip the outline of his length. He pulls his lips away from yours, but keeps your noses pressed together. As he speaks, you can just barely feel his lips flutter against your own.

“I…”

You hear him exhale deeply through his nose.

“I’m real sorry about this, angel.”

“It’s alright,” you said, letting go of his belt, and instead, holding on to his waist. “It’s okay.”

Jackson teases another kiss, brushing his lips up against yours with a puff of warm air from his mouth. He moves his lips up to your forehead and kisses there, letting his lips linger for a while, with his hand still gripped behind your neck.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Jackson, really. It’s fine. I didn’t mind at all.”

He pulls his lips from your forehead and again looks heaven bound, eyes open to the grayed sky. He closes his eyes and allows the rain to beat onto his face for a moment before he clears his throat to speak again, his head still pointed upward.

“I love you. I’m doing this for you.”

The words drift in and out of your ear momentarily, and you part your lips to respond, but every thought you had was erased by the sudden sharp pain of Jackson tightening the grip on your neck into a vice. He reels your head toward him and snaps it backward, sending your head crashing into your car with a thunderous bang, leaving a deafening ringing in your ears before the world around you shifts abruptly to black.

~

You jerk awake in bed, your hand involuntarily jerking up to your chest to feel your heart. You look around yourself and your surroundings, and cup your head in your hands as you see your familiar ornate red bed and two nightstands. You examined your fully clothed body, and grab your keys, which sat untouched on your nightstand. You allow your feet to dangle off of the side of the bed while you catch your breath, gazing over at your packed bags at the door. The sun outside was bright and shining, casting its rays on the door as you gathered your belongings and left the room behind with a final shaken and momentary glance.

As you stepped out of your room, you heard a chorus of voices, paired with the mechanical whine of tools in nearby rooms, and the bang of a hammer against a wall adjacent to your room. The motel had become more densely packed with the arrival of Sunday, bringing people from odd ends of town to meet and visit with one another. In the days leading up to today, Mrs. Stafford had hired several helping hands to fix up her motel, which had disturbed the peace you were familiar and comfortable with.

As you stepped from your room and held your door key in your hand, Mrs. Stafford stood at the front desk with her hand extended.

“You all ready to go?”

You drop your room key in the palm of her hand and breathe out a heavy sigh, looking around at the faces that peppered the lobby and hallways.

“Yeah, I am. Thank you again for letting me stay here. No hard feelings for taking the job with Mr. Pritchard, right?”

“Oh, please,” she said, patting your hand. “I’m happy for you as long as you take care of yourself. And try to come and see me a few times before you go’n back home. Tell Jackson I said he can give you up for a day or two here and there so you can come see about me.”

“I will, Mrs. Bea.”

You feel a chill creep up your spine as Mrs. Bea walks up from behind the desk to squeeze you into a tight hug in an instance of déjà vu. After letting go of the hug, she places a strip of paper in your hand with a number jotted down.

“Now you take care, sweetheart. That there’s the number to the motel, so you can call me any time. And don’t let that ol’ Jackson woo you with his good looks. I’m surprised he’s not here today. He tends to come by on Sundays.”

Bea shakes her head and turns around back toward the desk, where a couple people now stood waiting.

“Anyway, let me not ramble and hold you up too long. Or make these people too angry. Drive safe, honey.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bea.”

Walking out of the front door and into the parking lot, you turn once more toward the motel before placing the paper Bea had given you in your purse and popping your trunk, hoisting your two bags inside, slamming it back shut with a familiar mechanical thud. You felt the warmth from the sun dissipate as a stray cloud passed in front of it, graying the sky and the world around you. You thought back to your dream, its dark gray layers and wispy drops of rain, and looked at the side of your car, where your head had smashed in the dream. You shook off an odd anxious feeling and got into your car, beginning the long drive back to Jackson’s home on the outskirts of town.

Just as it had before, you watch as the land shifts from green, to brown, and back to green again as you near Jackson’s farm. Pulling your car into his yard, you can see everything as you’d remembered it before. This time, however, in his field of crops, you could see Jackson, tools in hand, with a white tank top clinging to his skin. You parked, feeling your chest for the necklace you’d worn for a few days now, and gripped it between your thumb and forefinger before opening your car door and stepping out into the dirt. Jackson stood from his kneeling position and began to wipe off his dirtied hands with a cloth from his pocket as he watched you walk toward him.

“You’re looking good, Mr. Pritchard.”

You watched Jackson smile towards the ground, his arms crossed and rested on the handle of a hoe, whose front end was partially buried in the dirt.

“City girl,” he called out, as you were still several feet from him, “What brings you back ‘round here?”

You looped your hands behind your neck to unclasp the cross necklace. Jackson watched as you gathered it in your palm and extended your hand, allowing the cross and a small length of chain to dangle past your finger.

“I found this in the bible you gave me, in a back pocket. I did wear it a couple times, but thought I’d give it back. Just in case you didn’t mean for me to have it.”

Shoving his cloth back into his pocket, you watched his fingers grasp and examine the cross, front and back.

“I don’t recognize it. No marks or engravin’s like any of my important ones got. You can keep it, if you like. I ain’t got no use for it.”

He let go of the cross pendant, allowing you to examine the cross yourself before you heard his voice again. You were taken aback by the quickness with which he dismissed the necklace, but appreciated the gift nonetheless.

“I do hate t’ disappoint if that’s all you came out here for.”

You shook your head, putting the cross in your pocket.

“No, actually,” you said, standing more upright, “I actually came here to accept the job.”

Jackson clicked his tongue.

“Would you be terribly upset if I said the position got filled?”

You felt your heart jump in your chest.

“Did it really?”

“Nah,” he said, prying up a patch of dirt with his hoe, “Not at all. I’m messin’ with you.”

You breathed out a sigh of relief and heard Jackson’s bellowing laugh as he adjusted the hoe’s position in the dirt. He collected himself, for the most part, before saying anything more.

“Alright,” he said, with one last laugh, “If you’re serious, go’n and wait in the house for a little bit. I’ll be right in.”

Jackson gave you a kind smile before going back to tending his crops. You walk up the steps of his porch and into his house, but are confused at the absence of barking or shuffling from Earl. Regardless, you close the door behind you and look around at the familiar surroundings. Before stepping into the living room, you stop to peer out of the kitchen window. You pull the curtain aside to see Jackson, head facing downward toward the ground as he rhythmically drives his hoe into the dirt, bringing it back up with a pile of rich, dark earth from below. You look up at his arms and shoulders, glistening with sweat in the faint sunlight, which had begun to appear again from behind the clouds. The white tank top he wore moved with him like a second skin, clinging to his chest and stomach, outlining every muscle beneath, and revealing the outline of his back. Jackson lifted his head, to which you quickly closed the curtain to prevent him from catching you watching. You step briskly away from the window and into the living room instead, investigating the photos you hadn’t gotten a chance to the first time you visited.

Your eyes glossed over every photograph, struggling to find some place to settle. You saw several pictures of Jackson much as he looked now, gruff and bearded with people you recognized from town. But among the photos also were people you didn’t know, or younger versions of people you’d already met; you couldn’t discern which was true. In one photo, however, stood Jackson, standing proudly with his hand in the air at a podium with a cross embellished on the front. He was clad in a black suit with his mouth open, as if he was mid-speech. In the picture, his raised hand clutched a bible.

One picture in particular caught your eye; the same one you’d passed by on your walk up the stairs just a few days prior. An older man, who did not look like Jackson (not unless he’d once been bald and beardless), next to a younger boy. The two stood in front of Jackson’s home, or what you knew as Jackson’s home. The picture was entirely colored in a brownish black and white. Neither was smiling particularly widely, but the man had a close shoulder grip on the boy.

You tilted the picture closer toward you with your fingertips, trying to find anything that might identify the who or the what; you also examined more pictures to see if these two could be seen in any other pictures that hung on the wall. As you still held the picture tilted in your fingertips, you heard the door swing open with a jarringly loud bark from Earl. You jerk your hands upward in startled fear, sending the photo you held upward from the nails that held it in place, crashing down to the living room floor to the sound of shattering glass.

Earl hurriedly walked over to the fallen picture frame, sniffing it, then pointing his cold, wet noise up at you, investigating both your palms. Jackson walked in behind him, closing the front door before peering into the living room to see what had fallen. Your heart sank in your chest as you tried to explain how you’d managed to break something of his on day one.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Pritchard,” you said, taking a couple steps back as Jackson walked closer to investigate the damage. “I was just looking at the photos, and Earl scared me half to death.”

Jackson knelt down and turned the frame over, seeing what picture had fallen. He sets it back down, but doesn’t move from his knelt position.

“What had you interested in this one?”

“I didn’t know who it was. It isn’t anyone I’ve seen in town. But I recognized the house.”

Jackson stood, his body inches from yours. You felt his arm brush up against your own as he again pulled the cloth from his pocket, wiping his hands.

“It’s me and my father. When I was a boy.”

He began to clean his fingernails as he continued.

“He’s been dead a while now.”

You stood in stunned silence for a small while before you found any words to speak.

“I’m sorry,” you struggled out. You walked on eggshells with your words.

“For your loss. And for the picture.”

Jackson grunted before shoving the cloth into his pocket once more, looking down at the picture frame and the glass shards around it.

“Yeah, well,” he said, tugging Earl by the collar away from the broken glass, “I made my peace with it.”

As he ushered Earl into the kitchen, you hear his voice bounce from the walls.

“Since you made a little job for yourself, why don’t you get started cleanin’ that up?”

He returns from the kitchen with a broom and dust pan, extending his arms and handing them off to you. You move the wooden frame and picture aside as you begin to sweep up the small shards of glass.

“So, you said you accept the job, right?”

“Yes sir, I did.”

“You acceptin’ the room, too?”

“Planned on it, if that’s still okay. Current situation considered.”

Jackson crossed his arms, watching you move as you swept. Even with your eyes pointed towards the floor, focused on the bristles of the broom you held, the sharp glass, and the blue dustpan at your feet, you felt his eyes move with your every move, tracking each of your movements as he spoke.

“I didn’t see you carry in any bags. Belongin’s ‘r anything.”

“They’re still in my car, in the trunk.”

“I can bring ‘em in for you, if you like. Carry ‘em down to your room. How many bags is it?”

“Just two.”

You pause your sweeping and lean the broom against the wall, reaching into your back pocket to pull out your keys and place them in the palm of his hand. As you resume sweeping, the front door creeks open and shut as Jackson heads back outside.

With all the shards collected in the dustpan, you dump them into a tall trash can in the kitchen, and place the broom against the same wall. You return to the picture frame, which was laying face side down the floor.

You kneel down, turning over the frame to again investigate the picture, but find it empty as the picture itself falls out and onto the floor. Picking up the picture, to examine it more closely, you flip it to see its back side, which has words and numbers in inked pen. You read them.

Isaiah  
43:25

You recognize the writing as a Bible chapter and verse, and begin to dig into your purse for the bible Jackson had given you. You thumb through the pages to find the chapter of Isaiah, but can hear Jackson’s heavy footsteps beating against the ground, louder, louder, towards the front door.

You rush and fumble in your purse for a pen and quickly jot down the verse in shorthand on the bible’s back inside cover.

I  
43 25

As you pen your last stroke on the “5”, the front door whines as Jackson pushes it open, both of your bags in tow. You shove your bible and pen back into your purse, slinging it over your shoulder and taking the frame and photo in hand.

“I’m sorry about this again, Mr. Pritchard.”

He sets your bags down next to the basement door, stopping to look over at you.

“Don’t worry about it, darlin’. I can always get a new frame. ‘R make one. And now that you’re workin’ here, you got plenty of time to make up for it.”

You watched as Jackson disappeared behind the basement door. In your hands was still clutched the picture and picture frame you’d dropped. You turned and set them both on the living room table, and waited for Jackson to return from the basement. You heard the shuffling of bags, then the steady sound of increasingly clear footsteps trekking up the stairs until Jackson reemerged, closing the door behind him.

“Was there anything else you needed me to do?”

Jackson wiped his hands on himself and eyed you, furrowing his brows as he looked at your outfit; jeans and a plain black tank top.

“That what you plan on wearin’ t’ work?” Jackson said, pointing toward your clothes.

You looked down at your outfit and back up and Jackson.

“…Yeah. I mean, they’re my clothes, right?”

“I know. They just don’t seem very job-like. That’s all.”

You squinted at him, adjusting your tank top and dusting off your jeans.

“What do you mean?”

Jackson heard the change in the tone of your voice and smirked, putting his hands up in mock surrender and crossing them.

“Nothin’ bad. I don’t mean anything by it. I just associate work with work attire is all.”

He stopped to collect his thoughts.

“Take the day we met, f’r example. I wasn’t workin’ that day, so I had on somethin’ nice. But I’m wearin’ this now, ‘cause I’m workin’ out on the farm. I wear another outfit when I’m dealin’ with the animals. Every job has its own clothes t’ go with it.”

You pat your hands against your stomach and hips, looking again at your outfit.

“I’m not sure if I have anything that says ‘I help cook and clean on a farm’, to be honest with you.”

Jackson sighs through his nose, then shifts his eyes towards the top of the stairs.

“I might have somethin’ you like.”

Familiarly, as he had on your first house tour, Jackson takes his echoing steps up the stairs, and you follow behind, now looking at the blank space where the picture of Jackson and his father had hung. You walk with him into his own room, where he motions his hand for you to sit on his bed while he rummages through his closet.

After several moments of silence, filled only with the sound of hangers clanking and clacking against one another, Jackson begins to pull out several articles of clothing from the very back of the closet. First comes a black dress with long sleeves, the neck and arms collared in white. Next comes a shirt of the same style, followed by a mid-length black skirt. As Jackson pulls each article from the closet, another couple dresses, more shirts, more skirts, he drapes them on the bed next to you.

“Where’d you get clothes like this, anyway? They don’t seem like they’d fit you.”

Jackson laughs through his nose, pulling the last of the clothes from the closet. Next to the small stack of clothes he sets a couple pairs of heels and two pairs of stockings, the stockings still in their packages.

“You’re attentive. No, they ain’t mine. Don’t got any hidden daughters that I know of, neither. They belonged t’ someone who used to live here in town. She needed someone t’ give ‘em to, but no one else in town wanted ‘em. So I offered t’ take ‘em off her hands anyway. Take the load off ‘er.”

You look through the pile of clothes, looking at their size tags and condition. All of the clothes looked and smelled perfectly clean, and all of them appeared to be your size.

“I’ll leave you t’ look at the clothes, see if you like ‘em. I’ll be just outside if y’need me.”

Jackson walked out of the room with a several brisk steps, leaving you alone with the clothes on his bed. You began to strip, first taking off your tank top, then beginning to unbutton and unzip your jeans. You pull them down to the floor and step out of them, picking up the first dress Jackson pulled out, black with white collars. You take pause to look around the room, closer than you had on your first visit. You still see the religious paraphernalia on the walls, and the plaque that hung over his bed that you remember reading to yourself. However, as you look down toward his nightstand, you feel your heart skip a beat at the sight of the double barrel of what you can only imagine is a large shotgun, leaning against the wall closest to the door. You look at the doorway to ensure Jackson isn’t looking before quietly tip-toeing your way toward the gun. It’s shiny and well kept; you can’t decide what that means. Is it real, well kept, and functional? Or is it a trinket, a piece of memorabilia to which he gave special care and attention?

Glancing at the gun for only a few moments longer, barring an incurable feeling of anxiety, you walk back around to the opposite side of the bed, closest to the closet and the clothes Jackson had picked out for you. As you began to unzip the dress in the back, you see Jackson’s head emerge from the doorway. He looks up to see you nearly bare; you only had on a black bra and black lace panties that hugged closely to your hips. Almost immediately, Jackson dips his head back out of the room.

“Sorry about that,” he calls from the hallway. “I wasn’t thinkin’. Wasn’t sure if you were gonna try ‘em on yet.”

You step into the dress, pulling it up to your hips and slipping your arms through the sleeves.

“It’s alright, Mr. Pritchard,” you say, reaching for the zipper in the back, “Don’t worry about it.”

You grip the zipper in your fingers and manage to reach your hand halfway up the dress before not being able to reach any further.

“Mr. Pritchard?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Would you mind helping me with this zipper?”

You see Jackson’s face ease into the doorway. His eyes scan up and down for a few seconds to ensure you’re not as bare as you had been before as he steps into the room. You turn your back to him, motioning toward your zipper. He steps up behind you, and you feel his hand press up against your back as his fingers grip around the zipper, pulling it upwards. His hand presses into the middle of your back, rising slowly up until it stops at your shoulder blades, with a jerk as he reaches the top of the dress.

“D’you like it?”

You adjust the collars on both the sleeve and around your neck, looking down at your body. You pull down the dress, which comes up just above your knees.

“I do, actually. It’s very pretty. Very maid-like.”

“Good,” Jackson starts, “I’m glad you like it. I was thinkin’, maybe you wear this the days you work, an’ wear whatever you want your days off. Make it official-like.”

“If I knew you had some nice uniforms, maybe I wouldn’t’ve packed so many clothes.”

Jackson smiles down at you, clicking his tongue.

“Yeah,” he said, letting his eyes drift down toward your chest. “You’re probably right.”

You watch him tilt his head to the side.

“Where’s that cross you brought by?”

Looking down towards the floor at your jeans, you pick them up and reach into the back pocket. From them, you pull out the gold chain you’d offered to Jackson earlier. He takes it from your hand and unclasps it, holding it open, level with your neck.

“May I?”

You nod, and his arms wrap behind your neck, the cross hanging once again over your heart. You feel Jackson’s body heat, his rugged build, his muscled arms, all pressed lightly against you as he peered over your back to clasp the necklace. You could smell a light and unobtrusive cologne that mingled with the scent of dirt and leaf litter on him from his farm work outside. Once he was done, you adjusted the pendant until it was centered over your chest. Jackson nods, himself holding the cross in his hands momentarily before letting it drop out of his grasp.

“There. Now you’re work ready.”

Jackson turned and walked toward the bedroom door.

“You go ahead and finish gettin’ dressed. I’ll be downstairs, settin’ you up for your work.”

As Jackson leaves the room, his steps growing fainter down the stairs, you continue putting on your new clothes. You first reach for the stockings, taking care not to create any rips along the thin, sheer, black cloth as you slip each leg inside and pull them up taught to your waist. You look over the two pairs of heels that lay on the bed. Both pairs were black, with one pair being a relatively short, simple pair of pumps. The second pair were taller and platform-like, with buckles in the front that were adorned with large black bows. You look inside the heels for a size, but don’t see one. You slip on the second pair, wiggling your heel into them, and feeling them slide in with a pleasantly surprising and comfortably snug fit around your feet. Buckling them, you stand and look yourself up and down before picking up the clothes you’d taken off, along with the remainder of the clothes Jackson had offered you, and heading downstairs.

With each descending step, your heels clicked against the wood of the stairs. You could see Jackson seated on the living room couch, his eyes gazing upward at you, his mouth slightly ajar as you made your way to the bottom step and down to the floor. His eyes focused for a long moment on the heels you wore before scanning back upwards to your face.

“Oh. Uh, you can feel free to make yourself at home for now. Put your clothes away an’ everything. Work can wait a little while longer.”

“Maybe I can spend my first day on the job taking a nap.”

Jackson glares in your direction as he stands, adjusting his belt around his waist.

“I’m sure you’d like that. But at least try t’ find somethin’ t’ keep yourself busy for a little while.”

Feeling the weight of your new clothes in your arms, you nod in Jackson’s direction before turning toward the basement. Descending the stairs, you see your bags sitting next to the cage in the corner of the room. You unpack your clothes and place them all in the dresser drawer that stood between the cage and your bed, including the clothes Jackson lent to you. You place the second pair of heels at the foot of the dresser, and your empty bags on a nearby wall before looking through your purse for your phone, left untouched since leaving Bea’s motel.

Low Battery

Battery at 10%. Connect to charger or power source.

You reach into your purse to unravel your charging cord and begin to search the room for an outlet. You see nothing in the corner where your bed sat, and likewise, nothing along the wall next to the dresser. However, as you stood and walked toward the cage, you could see a small double outlet to its side, next to the full-length mirror. Plugging in your outlet and setting it atop the cage, you again see the bible that had been there a few days earlier. This time, however, you could see more closely a red bookmark peeking from the edge of its pages. Turning the pages to the kept page, you see the full bookmark, deep red, with a gold cross in the middle. Below the cross are the letters “HJM” in thick black lettering. Pushing the bookmark aside reveals bright yellow highlighted text, the current chapter being Romans.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

You ponder over the words for a moment as you stand in front of the cage, but abruptly remember the scripture you’d found on the picture of Jackson and his father. From your purse, you grab your small bible and read the scribbled “I 43 25”.

As you begin to flip pages erratically to find Isaiah, unsure of where, precisely, the chapter starts, you hear the loud thud of something crashing against the basement door. You snap up your head to see nothing, no movement or swaying, and not even the sound of Earl or Jackson’s voice. Feeling your heart race against your chest, you stare at the doorway a while longer before resuming your page turning.

Finally, you find Isaiah, and skim until you find the verse in question.

“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”

The scripture rings and repeats in your head several times as your eyes scan the pages back and forth, the bookmark holding one page and your finger holding the other. What transgressions? Whose sins? Who needs saving?

You close the bible and put your own gifted bible back in your purse before heading back upstairs. As you turn away from the door and toward the living room, you can see Jackson, sat still on the couch, his legs spread apart and his head tilted back, eyes closed. His broad shoulders were slumped downward, his arms, with their bulging veins, resting limply in his own lap. He lifts his head just barely and opens one eye to the sound of the basement door closing, then lays his head back down.

“Don’t mind me, darlin’. Just restin’ my eyes a little while. You don’t gotta worry about makin’ lunch today. But if you could do some cleanin’ up in here, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

He nonchalantly motions his hand toward a coffee table in the center of the room, on top of which are an assortment of cloths, rags, and cleaning supplies. You grab a rag and spray bottle of cleaner from the table and bend over to set the table’s sparse contents on the ground. A fine mist coats the table as you spray, and is wiped away as you pass the cloth in your hands over the wettened glass. You start with the end of the table closest to you, and gradually ease your reach farther and farther across the table, bending lower and lower to reach. The dress you wore bobs up and down from your knees to the middle of your thighs with each reach. As you clean, you glance in Jackson’s direction, his head still thrown back, his hands resting on his upper thighs with his legs still spread apart.

With the satisfying squeak of clean glass let out with the movement of your rag, you bend to replace the items on the table, and move on to a fireplace that was on the far end of the room. Heels clicking against the hardwood floor, you reach up for the top of the mantel, spraying and wiping it clean of dust. You feel a rush of cold air against your legs as your dress rides up your body, and hear shuffling on the couch as you wipe. You don’t turn your head, but feel the movement of Jackson sitting upright, his head turned in your position. Silence falls over the room for several moments as you continue to scrub, before the abrupt noise of shifting clothes and stomping boots precludes the creek of the front door opening and slamming shut.

After thoroughly cleaning the mantle, you curiously turn your attention towards upstairs. You recall the room Jackson had barred you from during the house tour, and thought now about cleaning it. What could a self-guided tour hurt? For now, this was your home, too.

You traverse up the stairs and arrive at the door, gripping the knob and turning it to test if it’s locked. The knob gives way, completing a full revolution in your hand.

Pushing the door open steadily but slowly, more and more of the room begins to reveal itself to you. The mural of Christ, the crosses, the etched bedposts, the-

Before you can examine any more of the room, you hear a woosh of air and a nearly deafening crash as a coat hanger placed just in the path of the door tips and falls to the floor. You rush into the room and pick it up, setting it back on its feet before rushing over toward the window for any sign of Jackson.

Without parting the curtain, you can see him standing in a patch of grass, watching over the chickens that pecked bucked at the ground. At his feet was Earl, up on all fours, his nose pointed sturdily toward the window where you stood, his tail pointed stiffly upwards. Your heels tapped against the dull wooden floor as you eased slowly away from the window, and turned back toward the coat hanger, stroking your hand up and down its sides to look for scuffs and breaks. You feel none, and see no damage to the floor as you shift the coat hanger back where you believed it stood. You walk to the window once more, checking a final time for any sign of Jackson, but this time, see nothing; no Jackson, no Earl, and no sign of them anywhere within your eyesight. Craning your neck to look more distantly, however, your heart drops to the all-too-important sound of the front door whining open, with the scurry of Earl’s paws and the stomp of Jackson’s feet.

You rush desperately toward the door and slide through the just-open crack, taking care not to send the coat hanger crashing again to the floor. You damn the loud and now abhorrent click of your heels, and curse the high pitched whine of the door closing and clicking shut upon your exit of the room. Click, click, clicks bounce from the walls as you step posthaste for the bathroom, bending over into the tub to make yourself look busy.

Spraying and wiping, scrubbing and squeaking, you hear commotion up the steps before several heavier steps arrive behind you and stop in silence.

“You thought my bathroom could use a clean, huh?”

Sitting up, one knee still resting on the edge of Jackson’s bathtub, you see Jackson with his arms crossed, his arms and shirt now dirtier than before.

“Just a little bit.”

Jackson looked down either side of the hallway, then into the bathroom, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m sure you’re doing good work in here,” he said, taking a few small steps forward, “But I do need to use this for a moment.”

Rushing to your feet, you gather your rag and spray bottle and pull your dress, which had risen high on your thighs and nearly to your hips, back down toward your knees. Stepping out of the doorway with Jackson standing close, you squeeze your body past him, feeling his stomach pressed lightly against yours, and his arm brushing against your chest, as he makes little effort to move. He turns his head to watch you get out of his way, heels clicking down the stairs as you begin cleaning there instead. You reach the base of the steps and continue tidying the living room, your heart trapped in a nervous beat at your own foolish curiosity, but the nervousness soon subsides with Jackson exiting the house again soon thereafter.

~

Several hours pass, with the onset of a yellowing sky coaxing the sun’s rays past the curtained windows. You begin preparing dinner; two large steaks, potatoes, and fresh, unshucked corn. Also on the menu were freshly made bread rolls, at Jackson’s request. A pan sits on the stove with gently melting pads of butter as you drain the blood from the two steaks, fresh and wet in their packaging. You wash the blood from your hands and begin work on the bread, mixing the flour, water, yeast, and all else into a bowl, kneading and forming it with your palms, dumping out of the bowl and onto the counter to continue being kneaded, left to rise, only to be kneaded again. You form the dough into twelve individual rolls in a baking pan, then turn your attention to the corn. Shucking it over the trash can, peeling each leaf back to the sight of more leaves still, until revealing the fine silk beneath. Each piece gets broken in half and placed in a pot of salted water to boil. The potatoes, freshly pulled from the dirt, receive a bath under the running water of the kitchen tap, the dirt falling to pieces into the sink before funneling down the drain. You peel and cut them, placing them into still another pot of water to boil and mash.

The tssskkkk of a now thoroughly marinated steak sizzling with butter fills the kitchen as you continue to cook, staring intermittently through the window to see Jackson, still in his dirtied white tank top, weeding and harvesting crops, watering them, and tilling dirt.

Just before sunset turns to night, and just as the first steak comes out of the pan, the door swings open with a gentle push as Jackson steps into the house from the porch, passed by Earl, who eagerly takes residence in the living room. In the kitchen light, you can see his body still dirtier than it had been when you’d last seen him. In his arms is a crate of fruits and vegetables, just picked, which he sets on the kitchen counter before passing his body behind yours, his body pressed lightly against your dress for a brief moment as he curiously inspects dinner’s progress. He looks into each pot, then in the oven, where twelve half baked rolls continue to rise and turn golden.

“I gotta, say, everything looks amazing,” he says passing behind you again, this time, his hands just barely touching your hips. “I’m quite impressed.”

Thanking him, you watch as he heads toward the stairs. Before planting his foot on the first step, he hesitates, turning back to talk to you.

“I’m gonna head on upstairs and shower, sweetheart,” he says, his hand resting on the bannister. “While I’m up there, would you mind openin’ up a beer for me? You c’n help yourself, too.”

You nod in affirmation as Jackson ascends the stairs, and can see him walk into the bathroom, whose door was a straight shot forward. From the fridge you grab a brown glass bottle of beer, followed by your rummaging through the cupboards for a bottle opener. When you find one, you pop the cap, setting it on the table beside the plate and silverware you’d already set at the head of the table.

A small while later, as dinner nears completion, you hear the steady beating noise of water shooting from a shower head upstairs. As you begin to mash potatoes over the stove, you hear the bathroom door click as it unlocks and opens. In the doorway you see Jackson, a white towel wrapped around his waist, his hair falling down around his forehead, damp and dripping. The bathroom light partially illuminates his body, his bulging arms and muscularly built stomach still glistening with shower water. He held the towel in front of himself to prevent it from falling past his hips. He shot a momentary glance toward the kitchen before turning toward his bedroom, giving you a peek at his back, glowing in the bathroom light, water drops streaming from his shoulders and down his curves, until he disappeared further down the hallway.

You finish preparing plates for both yourself and Jackson, both plates with one steak and a generous helping of mashed potatoes, but Jackson’s with two pieces of corn and two rolls, compared to your single helping of each.

With dinner ready, almost on cue, you hear a door open upstairs and see Jackson toeing down the stairs, his hair still somewhat damp, messy, and unkempt. He now wore a black tank top and black pajama pants as he walked up to see the food on the table. He silently pulled out his chair and took his beer in hand, taking a long drink of it, his throat bobbing up and down with each swallow, before speaking.

“You know,” he said, setting the beer back on the table, “I do got wine in the house, if you’re a fan of it. Liquor cabinet in the living room.”

Jackson points toward the cabinet in the living room, which you walk over to open, revealing a selection of liquors and wines assorted within.

“I didn’t take you for a wine man.”

You hear Jackson snicker before he wraps his lips again around his beer bottle, taking another long swig.

“I ain’t, usually. But I got my reasons for keeping it around.”

You grab a bottle of red wine, and Jackson points you toward a kitchen cupboard, wherein he kept four wine glasses. You poured yourself a glass, then sat at the table, adjacent to Jackson, and picked up your fork. Before you could start to eat, Jackson held out his hand.

“Slow down there, city girl,” he said, motioning for you to put your fork down. “Grace first. I always say grace.”

He held out his hand, and you placed your palm in his. He gripped your fingers and closed his eyes.

“Lord, thank you for the meal we are about to receive. May we be truly grateful for your gifts, and may you bless this food which we are about to eat. And thank you also, Lord, for the help you sent my way today.” He paused to rub your hand with his thumb. “For that, Lord, I truly thank you.”

Jackson opens his eyes and lets go of your hand, smiling kindly before picking up his fork.

“And thank you personally, sweetheart. For being such a help to me around here.”

You smile back and pick your fork back up, twirling it in your fingers.

“It’s no trouble Mr. Pritchard, really,” you said. “Thank you for having me.”

~

Dinner continues with little conversation, outside of Jackson complimenting the food and you thanking him kindly. You sip your wine, and mid-meal, Jackson opens the fridge for a second beer. Jackson asks unassuming questions as you eat; how are you liking your room? The house? How’s the wine? Would you wanna learn more about the farm? The conversation is friendly and laid back, continuing sparingly as you finish your plates.

As you stand to clear the table, Jackson stands to throw away his two finished beer bottles. You place the dishes in the sink and put away the leftovers, as Jackson sits back at the table, pulling something out of his pocket.

“You ever seen one of these?”

You turn to see him holding a harmonica in his fingertips.

“Sure I have. A harmonica.”

“You ever listened to someone play it? In person, I mean.”

You thought for a moment before answering.

“No, actually,” you said, turning on the kitchen faucet to begin washing dishes. “I can’t say I have.”

As you scrub the grime away from the pile of dishes, you hear the countryside hum of Jackson’s harmonica behind you. He plays a slow, easy tune, pleasing to the ears in the kitchen, lit now only by a single light as all the light outside had dissipated into moonlight. You wash dishes to the rhythmic hum of his harmonica for a short while, finishing quickly with the dishes, which were few with only the two of you in the home. As you finish, Jackson stops playing and watches you wash up the rest of the kitchen, still in your clicking heels.

“I think I’m gonna shower and call it a night,” you muse, folding a kitchen towel and placing it on the counter. “Was there anything else you needed from me first?”

Jackson looked around the kitchen and living room thoughtfully, shaking his head.

“No, darlin’ I think I’m good for the night.”

He stood and stretched, his tank top lifting just slightly to reveal the skin of his stomach, lightly covered in hair, for a fleeting moment.

“You c’n go’n an’ shower an’ go to bed, you did good work today. You deserve the rest.”

You nod and smile, stepping past Jackson into the basement to grab soap and a change of clothes. Heading back up to the downstairs bathroom, you happily take off your heels, which were beginning to take a toll on your feet, and strip yourself of the rest of your clothes. The water from the tub faucet turns from cold, to lukewarm, to hot in short order as you turn on the shower head.

Steaming hot water beats against your skin as you stand bare beneath the shower. Your stress melts away and falls down the drain along with the water and dirt that covered your body. You lather up a washcloth, wiping it across your chest and up your neck, down your stomach and up your back, then getting each arm. You thought over your day, the gifted cross, the broken picture frame, and your defiant entrance into the room he’d barred you from; you could only hope dinner was good enough to keep him satisfied with your work.

As you bathe yourself, you hear a bump against the wall that startles your washcloth out of your hand and sends your bottle of soap crashing into the tub. The shower curtain rings above clatter together as you snap the curtain aside to look at the bathroom door. In looking for the source of the sound, you realize you left the bathroom door ajar, giving you a faint view of the hallway. You only see the faint outline of a shadow walking away for not even a second, followed by a series of seconds filled with nothing but silence.

With a final look, you close the shower curtain again and finish your shower, letting the soap fall from your body until you turn off the water and emerge, newly cleansed and wrapped in a towel to dry.

You dry yourself off and put on your pajamas, loose fitting and comfortable, welcome after a day of work in stockings and heels. Making your way back to your own room and closing the door behind you, you eagerly await your first night of sleep in your new temporary home. First, however, you see your phone, still atop the cage in the corner, and surely charged by now. Picking it up to unlock it, you can hear the basement door click open as steps shuffle down toward you. You turn to see Jackson, his arms full with blankets and pillows.

“I forgot,” he said, adjusting his arms around the mound of sheets, “It can get pretty cold down here. ‘Specially at night. I thought I might bring these down for you.”

“Oh, thank you Mr. Pritchard,” you said, pulling the charge cord from your phone, “You can put them anywhere. That’s sweet of you.”

Jackson nods, kneeling down to set the pile of sheets on the floor in your peripheral vision. You look back to your phone, reading 100%, and begin to check up on anything you’d missed. Scrolling past several inconsequential notifications, checking a few with the spotty service, you remember the number you’d received from Mrs. Bea, which you had yet to put in your phone book. You turn toward your bed, on top of which sat your purse.

With your arm extended, you feel a sharp and crippling pain in the back of your skull, paired with two loud mechanic thuds. You feel an arm wrap around your stomach before your body can fall face first into the cage. In your ears is an intense ringing, and your vision blurs, fading into bleak nothingness, your head limply tilting toward the ceiling. Beyond your control, you feel a pair of arms hook underneath your own, your heels dragging along the floor. Just before losing consciousness, you faintly hear a voice.

“Lord,” says the voice, “May you give me the strength to do that which you ask of me.”

And the world around you snaps to black.


	3. God's Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All dirty things need cleansing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always: typos are inevitable but they add character, ya see

Hazy. Foggy. Dark. You felt your body begin to regain consciousness and control behind your closed eyes. Awash with a wooziness and unease, you tried hard to recall what had happened before now. Where am I? Where’s Jackson? Am I still asleep? Am I dreaming?

A throbbing pain in your skull took you out of your own head temporarily. What happened before now? You tried to remember the last words you heard. “Lord,” you recalled, “give me the strength to do that which you ask…”

The strength to do what?

You moved your hand to caress the back of your head, still warm and throbbing with pain, but were met by resistance and the rattling of chains. You opened your eyes and turned your head, weak and disoriented, to look at your right wrist. Your arm was outstretched, both of them were; your wrist wrapped in a brown leather strap chained to the cage bars. Pulling did nothing. Tugging did nothing. You mad a fist and pulled downward, to break the leather or allow your hand to slip free. Nothing.

Without looking forward, you felt another presence close by. Light breathing. Subtle movements. The unmistakable knot that forms in the pit of your stomach when you feel someone’s stare.

You squeezed your eyes shut to attempt to blot out the aches and pains that crept over you. Turning your head slowly to your front, you allowed your eyelids to part open. Directly in front of the cage, sitting on the floor, was Jackson. Next to him was a bag of frozen peas, its plastic packaging coated in beads of condensation. The back of your head and neck were warm with the rushing and throbbing of blood, but cool and damp as the sensation of soothing ice tapered away.

A toothpick sat in the corner of his mouth, making jerky movements as he maneuvered it with his tongue. His eyes and hands were occupied, holding what you recognized as your cell phone. He bumbled through your pictures, your apps, your social media, all with furrowed, disapproving brows.

In your gut you felt the urge to scream. To scream at the top of your lungs for help. But you remembered now the isolation of the home; the distance of it from anything or anyone. What was then an alluring quirk to a home was now part of your own undoing. More than even that, more than the uselessness of wasting your breath on a scream, you were keen to avoid endangering yourself.

Just behind Jackson, propped upright against the wall, was a long, glossy shotgun. You remembered it as the one from his bedroom, the same one you couldn’t discern as real or fake. Your heart jumped at the sight of it, and your mind was thrown back in time, to the metal cracking you’d heard right before blacking out. Drawn again to the throbbing pain in your head, you let out a whimper of pain. You moved your arms as best you could, limited in their mobility, to relieve some of the numbness in your fingertips. You did the same for your legs, tucked underneath you as you sat on them in a kneeling position. You sat yourself up on your knees, as high as you could before your head hit against the top of the cage. At the sound of your awakened maneuvering, Jackson took his eyes from your phone and looked at you. At the very least, he hadn’t removed any of your clothes.

“You’re finally awake, I see. Good. We got some things t’ talk about.”

You glare at him blankly and say nothing. You see the corner of his mouth turn upwards, as if to mark the beginnings of a smirk, but his mouth turns back downward once he looks back down at your phone.

“How many ‘f the deadly sins ‘r you familiar with?”

Jackson looks up at you expectantly for an answer, but you say nothing. Blowing a huff of air out of his nose, he continues to speak.

“You don’t wanna talk. That’s alright. You ain’t gotta talk right now.”

With your phone in his hand, he turned the screen toward you. Using his finger on his other hand, he flipped through the pictures in your gallery. Selfies. Pictures with friends. Bar nights out. Food. Drinks. You. Friends. You. You. You. Friends. Drinks. You.

“You know,” he said, his finger still flipping from one picture to the next, “It actually took me a little while t’ get the hang of this thing. All things considered, I ain’t really been around phones like these before. I think I got it now, though.”

He turned your phone back towards himself, continuing to peruse its contents.

“You ever heard of 'em at least, darlin’?”

Jackson again awaits an answer, but you don’t speak. He licks his teeth and clears his throat.

“I’m sure you have. And I gotta say, I’m seein’ quite a lot of ‘em in this phone. Pride. Gluttony. Lust. But I found out about the lust thing the first day we met, didn’t I?”

“Go to hell.”

Just as soon as the words left your mouth, you began to regret them. You didn’t know why you were here, what your purpose was, or what Jackson’s plans were. Defiance could leave you dead like a caged animal.

Jackson laughed, running his hand over his beard to stroke down a few stray hairs. He licked his lips and glanced toward his shotgun on the wall. Your throat tightened, as did the rest of your body as you straightened your back. He turned his head to meet your gaze, and you met his as confidently as you could. He reached his arm behind himself, his hands wrapping around his shotgun. He adjusted it against his shoulder, then snuck the barrel between the cage bars. The cool, black barrel knocked against your forehead and pressed into your skull. Jackson yanked on the gun, releasing the loud click of its pump, and sending a jolt through you. Your palms were wet with sweat, as were your underarms. The numbness in your hands and legs was replaced by a nervous shaking, an electric tingle. Jackson’s finger hovered over the trigger and you closed your eyes, your throat sore and constricted as you fought the urge to cry. No matter how hard you fought, the tears fell anyway, falling from your shut eyes, running down your cheek toward your quivering lips. A few whimpers escaped your mouth the longer you felt the barrel and waited, anxiously, for the inevitability of your own death. You let your head tilt backward as the shotgun barrel forward, forward…

The pressure on your neck and forehead releases as the shotgun barrel recedes backward, toward Jackson. You hear a clatter and open your eyes to the sight of the shotgun returned to its position against the wall, and shift your eyes to see Jackson, staring at you.

“You’re really scared I’m gonna kill you down here, ain’t you, sweetheart?”

A shuddering breath escaped from your parted lips, but Jackson’s eyes never left your face. He waited several seconds for an answer, then spoke again.

“I think you been quiet for long enough now. Speak up. We should talk.”

You swallowed hard, your own saliva struggling to find its way down your tightened throat. You shifted in the cage, the numbness in your limbs beginning to return.

“Why are you doing this?”

Your voice was still shaky and strained, and Jackson’s head tipped to the side as you spoke. In his eyes, you saw some semblance of compassion. A sympathy, you thought; the kind of kind stare a friend gives when they listen to you vent your frustrations, and want you to know they’re there. To comfort you. To ease your pain.

Jackson shifted the toothpick in his mouth with his tongue, the removed it, twirling it between his fingers.

“Sweetheart, I want you t’ know somethin’. Honestly. From the bottom of my heart. I don’t wanna hurt you. And I sure don’t wanna kill you. Not at all.”

“Then why, Jackson?”

He seemed visibly shaken from hearing his own first name from your lips. But in the emotion, and the fear, you couldn’t bring yourself to care about formalities. How much of what you’d seen and heard was real? How much was fake? Who was Jackson Pritchard, really?

Jackson bit at the inside of his cheek for what seemed like a long while. He replaced his toothpick in his mouth, and scooted closer toward the cage. His side was facing you, his face turned toward the wall, his body leaning against the cage bars. He gripped one of the bars and peered into the cage to look at you.

“You ever hear God speak to you? Directly? Like hear his voice an’ everything?”

You shook your head.

“Well, I did. I really did, darlin’. He told me I have to help you. That I gotta save you. Cleanse you of your sins.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I wanna go. I wanna leave.”

Another well of tears builds and falls from your eyes, but you let them fall without succumbing fully to your sobs. You swallow down a lump in your throat inhale sharply to prevent a runny nose, and meet Jackson’s gaze directly. You watch as his hand slips between the cage bars, closer and closer to your face until you feel his arm palm caress your chin and cheek. He wipes away some of your tears with his thumb, and continues to stroke your tear stained cheek.

“Why’re you cryin’, angel? Tell me what’s wrong. You c’n talk to me.”

You squeezed your eyes shut to allow a few remaining tears to fall. Some collected on and dripped down Jackson’s hand, while some others ran down your chin and neck. You balled up your hands in fists, both to combat their numbness and contain a new growing anger.

“What’s wrong? You want me to tell you what’s wrong? What’s wrong is I’m scared to fucking death, Jackson!”

Your words were loud and scathing, and sent Jackson’s hand away from your face and out of the cage. His recoil gave you the confidence to go further.

“I’m locked in a fucking cage in a basement in the middle of fucking nowhere, with a delusional farmer who wants to play nice after knocking me out and putting a shotgun to my head, that’s what’s fucking wrong with me.”

As the last words left your mouth, Jackson’s head tilted down towards the floor. After chewing his toothpick several more times, he took it from his mouth and placed it on top of the cage. Placing each hand on a separate cage bar, he leaned his head forward. He was now facing you directly, his all black pajamas beginning blending with the dark air of the basement with each flicker of the lightbulb that hung from the ceiling.

“And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety. Also thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid; yea, many shall make suit unto thee. Job. 11:18. D’you know what that means?”

You sat still. Motionless.

“You’re safe here ‘cause there’s hope. There’s hope f’r you. You c’n rest easy ‘cause you’re safe. You won’t lose your life here. I don’t want that. You don’t want that. Right?”

You looked at the floor to avoid his gaze, but Jackson reached his hand inside to pick up your chin, forcing you to make eye contact with him.

“There’s no one here to make you afraid. I’m not here t’ scare you. I’m here t’ help you. An’ give you hope. ‘Cause that’s what God wants outta me. I’m just tryin’ t’ do my best t’ listen.”

You turned your chin away from his hand and grimaced. Rather than yelling, for voice remained low and steady.

“You’re a psycho. You’re a fucking freak.”

Jackson’s hand stroked your face, then cupped your jaw. You felt his fingers squeeze against the bone of his jawline as he pulled your head forward. Your faces were inches apart, and each time you pulled back, Jackson pulled forward.

“I want you t’ listen t’ what I’m about t’ say. An’ I want you t’ listen close. I don’t wanna kill you. I don’t even wanna hurt you. But I take my relationship with God very seriously. I live t’ serve. So believe me when I say that no matter how much I don’t wanna hurt you, I will do what I have to t’ teach you. T’ get you t’ listen. D’you understand?”

After hearing nothing back but silence, Jackson shakes your head and tightens his grip on you jaw.

“D’you understand me, girl?”

“I don’t wanna learn. I don’t wanna be here. I don’t wanna listen to you. I just wanna leave.”

“Unfortunately, darlin’,” Jackson said, reaching down toward his belt, “You ain’t really got no choice but t’ learn.”

From his pocket, he pulled out a set of keys. After studying them for several seconds, you recognized them as your own. Jackson dangled them from his finger in front of the cage.

“’Cause you ain’t really got a place t’ go, d’you?”

You grind your teeth and stare at your own car keys with your puffy, reddened eyes. With the oncome of a sudden realization, you crack a smirk.

“Mrs. Bea knows I’m here. I told her where I was going. She gave me her number. She expects me to call.”

Jackson nodded, shoving your keys back into his pocket as they jingled, muffled, against his thigh.

“That’s alright. God’ll see me through that problem when it comes.”

You were taken back by his apathy toward the knowledge that someone knew you were here. Someone who could grow suspicious if they didn’t hear from you, and he brushed it off like you hadn’t said anything. You watched as his arm outstretched toward the top of the cage. He pulled down a bible, the bookmarked one that you’d seen earlier, and began to flip through the pages. Pen marks and highlighter streaks littered many of the pages that you could see, including the one on which Jackson stopped. He began to read aloud.

“First Corinthians. Chapter six. Verse twelve. ‘All things are lawful unto me…”

The sound of his voice sent a range and bubbling in your stomach. If you were going to sit here and rot, you thought, you could at least do so without being forced to listen to word, after word, after word of a book that led someone to do something like this.

“Shut up.”

Jackson’s lip turned upward, baring his teeth, but he continued. Your hands again tightened into fists as you found your voice. Louder, crueler, more accusatory.

“…But all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me…”

“Stop talking, Jackson.”

“But I will not be brought under the power of any—"

“Shut your fucking—!“

Jackson’s hand wrapped around your throat before the last word even left your mouth completely. His grip was tight enough to constrict your airway as he yanked his arm forward and sharply back, sending the back of your head on a collision course with the back of the cage. A shriek of pain filled the room as shockwaves of pain cascaded from your head and down your back. Jackson loosened his grip on your neck only enough to allow you to breathe.

“I told you city girl,” he started, his voice much rougher than it had been before now, “I ain’t got no interest in hurting you just to hurt you. But I ain’t gonna tolerate disrespect. I c’n see what you really are. Who you really are. An’ it’s my job t’ fix that.”

Huffs of warm air left your nose as he spoke, but you opted not to respond.

“An’ while we’re talkin’ about respect, I think you oughta go back t’ callin’ me Mr. Pritchard from now on.”

Jackson’s hand slid up from your neck to grip around your jaw.

“Now,” he said, with a slight smile, “Are you gonna be a good girl an’ behave f’r me? You gonna sit an’ listen?”

You close your eyes and sigh. You were tired. In pain. Numb. You didn’t have the energy to fight. Or argue.

You nodded.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll listen.”

“Yes who?”

You lip quivered and you sighed. A tear fell down your cheek as you relented the last of the fight you had left in you.

“Yes, Mr. Pritchard.”

Jackson allowed your tears to collect on his thumb before he wiped them away. He brought his thumb up to your forehead and drew a cross, beginning with a long stroke down from the top of your forehead to the bridge of your nose, then crossing a second, shorter line through it. He let his thumb rest in the center of the cross and closed his eyes.

“Lord,” he began, in a voice reminiscent of the one he took on when saying grace, “May you take this child of God into your flock when she’s ready.”

When he let go of your head, you allowed your head to fall back and rest against the back of the cage. Your eyes remained partially open, but exhaustion hung heavily on your eyelids.

He started over.

“First Corinthians. Chapter six. Verse twelve…”

The words seem to echo in your ear as you hear them all again. All things are lawful… not expedient… brought under the power of any…

You lost track of time as Jackson continued to speak. You couldn’t tell if seconds, minutes, or hours had passed. Steadily he continued to read scriptures allowed, commenting now and again on their meaning. Each time your body started to become limp with the onset of sleep, he reached his hand into the cage to reposition hour head directly forward, to ensure you were looking and listening to him.

“Amos. Chapter eight. Verse 11. ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD’…”

Again.

“Galatians. Chapter five. Verse thirteen. ‘For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love, serve one another’…”

And again.

“Ecclesiasties. Chapter twelve. Verse thirteen. ‘Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man’…”

Verse after first, pause after pause to adjust your tired head, your ears only filtering the sound of his voice, until he stopped. You’d become so accustomed now to the sound of him speaking that you lifted your head to look at him as he closed the bible, setting it back on top of the cage.

“I think that’s enough for t’night, darlin’. I know this is hard f’r you. A lot of things are happenin’ t’ you right now that you don’t quite understand yet. But that’s alright.”

Jackson stood and turned back toward the stairs and the basement door, beginning to walk away.

“You should try an’ get some sleep, darlin’,” he called back. “You’ve had a long day.”

Leaving you with those parting words, Jackson’s feet trudged up the stairs and out of the basement door, the door swinging and clicking shut behind him, followed by the clicks of the locks on the other side.

You tried to adjust your feet beneath you in a more comfortable position. Leaning left. Leaning right. Directly beneath you. You settled on sitting cross legged, and shook your arms again in their chains to keep them from falling asleep. You leaned your head back and closed your eyes, recounting your day. Your week. Everything prior to this. You remembered home. Your family. Your friends. You remembered your first meeting with Mrs. Bea. Her glowing review of Jackson. Jackson’s levelheaded demeanor when you first met him. His innocent parting gift. Were you being naïve this entire time? Were you foolish? Or would anyone have made these same mistakes?

Thinking back a second time to Mrs. Bea’s glowing review, you were convinced Jackson had everyone in town fooled. A hollowness grew in your chest. If everyone loved Jackson, how long would it take someone to check in on him? On you? Hours? Days? Months?

Too exhausted to continue thinking, you kept your eyes shut and tried to doze off. It took several long minutes. Perhaps half an hour. But in time, your mind relented to the oncome of sleep, and allowed your aching bones to rest.

***

The following morning had been nothing short of disaster. Hours of rest had given you the strength of will to challenge Jackson, and from your current entrapment back in your cage, you knew it was wholly unsuccessful.

He’d come down to check on you that morning, and you’d told him how badly you needed to pee. You promised not to run. You lied.

You followed his lead up the basement stairs and into the downstairs bathroom after he unchained you. “It’ll be good f’r you t’ move around,” he’d said. “I know your limbs must be awful tired.”

You did your business and washed your hands. You could’ve left it at that. You didn’t.

When he opened the door, you bolted past him, shoving the door in his face and hightailing it toward the front door. But your wobbly, weakened legs were met with his extended boot, and you tripped, just in the hallway, the front door just barely in view.

He bent down to grab you and drag you back toward the basement. You fought him. You thrashed and kicked and screamed and cried,

But he was strong. So strong. Too strong for you to break free. Your heart fell into the stomach as the front door and the natural light of the kitchen faded, more and more, as you were drug down the stairs and forced back into your cage. You even tried to fight the chains. To kick open the cage door. Nothing worked. Here you sat, now, back at square one.

Faint clangs, rattles, and sizzles emanated from the kitchen. You couldn’t smell anything, but figured he was cooking breakfast. You weren’t sure of the time, nor sure if breakfast was for only Jackson, or for the two of you. You simply sat and listened, anxious for the next opening of the basement door.

A while passed before anything more transpired. But then, as the noise in the kitchen drew to a close, and stayed quiet for some time, you heard the distinctly familiar clicks of the locks on the basement door, followed by a growing beam of light from the kitchen above. Jackson closed the door behind himself as he descended the steps, a plate and a cup in his hands. He took a sitting position in front of the cage, setting the cup and plate down beside him as he readied the fork in his hands. Sausage. Bacon. Eggs. Hashbrowns. Toast. The cup opaque, but peering into the top you could see something orange, which you could only assume was orange juice. Jackson tore off a piece of sausage with the fork, piercing it with the prongs before offering the fork to your mouth.

“Go ahead an’ eat. It’s been a while.”

You turned your head away from the fork, but a growl from your stomach betrayed your defiance.

“You’re hungry, sweetheart. Eat.”

Jackson tried to reposition the fork in front of your mouth, but you snapped your head in the other direction.

Jackson sighed, putting the sausage back on the plate and instead picking up the cup of orange juice. He offered it.

“At least drink somethin’. You c’n go on a hunger strike, if you really wanna do all that, but I won’t have you dyin’ of dehydration down here.”

“Maybe I just wanna rot.”

Jackson pushed the cup closer toward your lips.

“Drink. Please.”

Your lips parted slightly, and Jackson tipped the cup into your mouth. Despite how much you wanted to defy him, you couldn’t deny how refreshing it was to finally have something to drink again. You took a few giant gulps, and allowed a final bit of orange juice pool into your mouth before your turned your head away.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

The orange juice in your mouth swirled from cheek to cheek as you positioned your tongue in your mouth. With a quick inhale, you jolted forward and spat it in Jackson’s face, leaving only a few drops to dribble from your lip.

Jackson sat silently, with his eyes closed for a moment, before he brought his hand to his face to wipe away the juice. He took off his shirt, a long sleeved green button up, and used it to wipe his face. He was left in only a gray tank top and brown pants, both of which were stained with set spots of orange juice. Jackson cleared his throat and put on a smile, however fake it may have been.

“That’s alright. You’re upset. That’s okay.”

He reached again toward the plate, and this time, offered a piece of bacon. The strip was hot and crisp, just barely touching your lips. You were tempted to take a bite, but just as tempted attempted to continue your tirade of defiance.

You bore your teeth and snapped out toward Jackson’s hand, taking the strip of bacon, and a couple of his fingers with it. He grunted in pain, and pried your head backward. You dug your teeth in deeper, ushering further grunts of pain from Jackson, as he squeezed your jaw with his free hand. With the pressure in your jaw growing too great to bear as his fingernails crowded in toward your gums and teeth, you released your bite. Jackson recoiled his bitten hand but used his other hand to continue grabbing your jaw as he spoke, seething, through his teeth.

“D’you really think after growin’ up with animals all my life, I don’t know how t’ make a wild one behave?”

“Fuck you.”

Jackson knocked your head back against the cage, and you winced in pain. The pain wasn’t as intense as it had been last night, but the snapping motions still made your head throb.

“Listen,” he said, lifting your chin, “I’ll give you one more chance. One more. I want you t’ eat somethin’. But if you pull somethin’ like that again, you can sit here and wait ‘til dinner. D’you understand me?”

No words came out of your mouth. You listened to the gurgling and churning of your empty stomach, your appetite whet with the strip of bacon you’d opted to chew and swallow down. Jackson picked up some hashbrowns with his fork and offered them to you, and you reluctantly took them, with hunger finally triumphing over pride. And so happened over and over, bite after bite, until the plate was clean and the cup was empty. He set the cup and plate aside and stared at you, and you stared back, until he broke the silence.

“I know you’re mad at me. Very mad. But I told y’ before. I don’t get any pleasure outta this. I’m a servant of God. I do what I’m told. I hope you understand that someday.”

Jackson shifted into a cross legged position and grabbed the bible atop the cage, setting it in his lap.

“An’ I hope you forgive me.”

With those final words, Jackson began another influx of bible scriptures. Quotes, verses, chapters, miniature explanations. “Today we c’n focus on Romans,” he’d said. “It’s got a lotta stuff I think we c’n learn from today.

And so it began again.

“Romans. Chapter six, Verse eighteen. ‘Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness’…”

And again.

“Romans, Chapter six. Verses twenty-two to twenty-three. ‘But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death’…”

Your body tensed at the prospect of dying down here.

“…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And again.

“Romans. Chapter eight. Verse twenty-one. ‘Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God’…”

Over.

“You see, darlin’, sin does nothing but hold us back from true enlightenment…”

And over.

“You have t’ see the chains your sins have shackled you in before you c’n break ‘em…”

Again.

“Corruption gets you nowhere. Sin gets you nowhere. Lust gets you nowhere. But God…”

Until Jackson paused his sermon full stop. He looked at you, your tired, defeated face, you slumped body, and closed his bible. He put it back on the top of the cage and scratched his beard before reaching for his belt, where your car keys hung flush against his thigh. He unclipped them, then unclipped a second set of keys.

He grabbed your wrist and, with the second set of keys, began to unlock one hand. Then the other. You looked on, anxious and horrified at what he was doing. What he planned to do with you.

With a different key, he unlocked the cage door and swung it open. He grabbed your hand, turned it palm side up, and dropped your keys in the middle of your hand before curling your hand shut.

“You wanna leave?” he said, shuffling aside. “Then leave.”

You stood stock still for a while before beginning to crawl from the cage. Jackson made no move to stop you. In fact, the farther out you crawled, the farther aside he moved, giving you space to maneuver. You stood to your feet, with your keys in hand, and looked down at Jackson.

“Go’n. I ain’t gonna stop you.”

With an instantaneous burst of speed, you turned away from Jackson and bolted up the stairs. “Be careful, now” is all you could hear being called up from the basement as you ran, pushing the basement door aside and running for the front door.

The knob gave way, the front door completely unlocked as you stepped out onto the porch. The sun was nearly blinding now, having eluded you for nearly 24 hours now.

You started to run down the porch steps, but felt your leg caught by a line of wire, quickly followed by a sharp pain in the back of your right calf. You shrieked in pain as you tripped, fell, and tumbled down the stairs and onto the dirt. You examined your leg, and could see an arrow shallowly embedded beneath your skin. Your face contorted in pain as you broke off both ends, and on a first attempt to pull the arrow out, you quickly realized it was too painful to move. Frantically, you looked up toward the front door for any sign of Jackson, but saw him nowhere. You tried a second time, and a third, but both attempt were met with shaky hands and a searing pain that you couldn’t move past as the blood streamed down your leg.

You stood, hobbling now on one foot, and noticed your car was no longer at the front of the house where you’d left it. Your lip quivered in an instinctual urge to cry from frustration, but channeled your energy into dragging yourself toward the back of the house, where you’d seen Jackson’s truck, to look for your car.

It took hours, it felt, to get anywhere on that one leg. You hopped without placing it on the ground. You dragged it behind you. You placed only a gentle amount of pressure on the ball of your foot. You tried a multitude of ways to maneuver, switching between them all to manage your pain, all without seeing or hearing any sign of Jackson. Finally, at the back of the house, your car came into view, parked with the front of it facing yourself, at the back of the house. You pulled out your keys and pressed a button to unlock it, then hobbled until you reached the front door. You struggled to sit in the car without aggravating your wound, but managed, slamming the door shut and turning the key.

You drew in several breaths before turning the key. If you knew anything, you knew how good chances were that it was dead. You turned the key.

You practically cried with relief when the engine hummed, but quickly pressed your foot on the gas, hell bent on getting the fuck out of there, and asking someone, anyone, for help. You looked back a final time toward the porch and still saw nothing, and no one, but never looked back. Your car barreled down the road, but not quick enough. You wished it could go 80, 100, 200 miles per hour to get away from Jackson, to get away from that house, and to finally get somewhere safe. But as the thoughts crossed your mind, you realized your car was beginning to slow. Sixty, fifty, to forty miles per hour as the scenery around you slowed from blurry figurines to clear cut images again.

A flicker of orange caught your eye and your heart began to break.

“FUEL LOW.”

You glanced at the fuel gauge.

E.

A panicked attempt to press your foot harder on the gas did nothing as the car struggled more. Thirty. Twenty.

You stomped your foot against the gas pedal repeatedly as the car slowed to a complete stop. You turned and turned your key.

Nothing.

Pressed the gas pedal.

Nothing.

You slammed your hand against the steering wheel and screamed yourself into a sob. You grabbed and shook the steering wheel in a tantrum, awash with fear, with anger, with frustration.

You stayed in your seat for a while, undecided on what to do next.

Where do you go from here?

It didn’t take you long to realize that decision was being made for you. You heard the loud rattling and grunting of a truck in the distance. Peering into your rearview mirror, you were optimistic for a moment. Please be someone who can help. Please help me.

Optimism faded quickly as you recognized the truck, white and green, that sat always at the back of Jackson’s home. His truck pulled past you, then pulled over ahead of your own car, before he stepped out, still in his gray tank top. You moved your hand to lock your car doors as he approached. He reached out and grabbed for the handle of the driver’s side door, and tugged, feeling its resistance and letting him know you’d locked it. He pointed down toward the lock in an attempt to get you to unlock the door. You didn’t move.

You see him breathe out a sigh as he walks back to the bed of his truck, reading inside for a long yellow rope. He kneels down and attaches one end to his own truck, then unravels the rope, kneeling down to attach the other end to the front of your car. You pressed your foot against the gas pedal, hoping maybe, possibly, there was just enough fuel left to hit him and end this. But no such luck befell you.

Jackson stood from the front of your car, and walked again to the passenger side window, tapping on the glass. You didn’t turn your head or respond. Jackson leaned over so that his face was in view in your peripherals.

“I know we ain’t on good terms right now,” he said, “But I meant what I said. I don’t want you t’ die out here. And I know you’re hurt. Let me get you back t’ the house so I c’n clean you up.”

Silence.

“Please, angel.”

You closed your eyes, and felt your cheeks get warm as a tear fell. You couldn’t deny your wooziness, or your pain, and unlocked the door.

Jackson pulled your car door open and reached for your arm, wrapping it around the back of his neck as he used one arm to support your back, as the other shuffled beneath your legs. He lifted you out of your car and used his foot to shut your car door as he carried you to the passenger side of his truck. He set you down slowly and gently, allowing you to move your body in a way that was as comfortable for you as it could be before he shut his truck door, walked around the front, and got into the driver’s seat.

He turned his key in the ignition, starting the car and turning the truck back around toward the house. He drove at first in a large circle, turning wide enough to allow your cars wheels to adjust as he towed it. Once both cars were facing back toward what was now home, the ride was smooth and steady. With green patches of land beginning to fade again into view as the truck drew closer and closer to Jackson’s house, you enacted one last ditch effort to escape.

You yanked on the door handle and swung open the truck door, and began to jump out, but felt Jackson’s hand grip around your arm. He yanked you back, and the car door swung back shut, the car tenser now with the aftermath of your miserably failed escape attempt.

“You’re hurt, sweetheart. I know you’re scared, and you’re confused. But there ain’t nothin’ outside this truck but dirt. Don’t be stupid.”

You sat back upright in your seat, your leg becoming numb to the pain. The remainder of the short ride back home was done with Jackson’s hand gripping your arm, ensuring another escape attempt wouldn’t ensue. He drove the truck to the back of the house, where it had been before, and parked. He helped you out of the car just as he’d helped you into it, carrying you in his arms up the porch stairs and into the house, onto the couch, where he examined your leg.

Jackson poked and prodded, however gently, looking at the depth and severity of the wound.

“It didn’t go that deep. Didn’t hit anything major. But I need some supplies t’ get this cleaned up for you. Can I trust you t’ stay put while I go in the bathroom, or am I gonna have t’ drag you along t’ keep an eye on you?”

“I’ll stay.”

Jackson nodded, but whistled to call Earl over.

“Sit, boy.”

Earl sat, paws together, upright, his ears pointed directly toward the ceiling.

“Watch ‘er, Earl.”

Earl looked at you, standing tall as you sat slumped on the couch. Jackson walked into the downstairs bathroom, rummaging and clattering loud enough for you to hear. As you listened, you thought to yourself. “Can I trust you?” he’d said. What if he did trust you? What if you gained his trust? Where would he let you go? What would he let you do?

Jackson was looking for a child of God. Someone willing and obedient. If you gave him that, you thought, you could leave. One day. Some day. Right under his nose.

From then on, you’d decided, you’d play his game. He’d get his servant. He’d get his slave to God. Just long enough, you thought, to throw it in his face.

Jackson turned the corner back into the living room, his arms and hands full with supplies. He set them all on the couch beside you. Alcohol, gauze, cotton balls, and a plastic syringe. He sucked a generous amount of alcohol into the syringe and lifted your leg, squirting the alcohol on the wounds on either side. It stung, but wasn’t unbearable. Then, however, Jackson gripped one side of the arrow stick in his hand, keeping your leg steady with his other hand.

“This is gonna hurt a lot, darlin’. But I gotta do it t’ clean you up.”

Before you could react or respond, a shooting pain rain up your leg as Jackson ripped out the arrow. You cried out in pain, and Jackson shushed you.

“Shhh, darlin’. I know. The worst part is over.”

More alcohol followed as Jackson cleaned the wound, sending more searing, stinging pains up your leg. You curled your toes to contain your pain, and decided to distract yourself with questions.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Cleanin’ your wound?”

“No. All this. Why all this?”

Jackson sighed, dabbing away some of the dried blood on your leg with a wettened cotton ball.

“I explained as best I could. God asked me to. It’s part of His plan, I think. I don’t know why. I just know it’s somethin’ that has to happen.”

“How long are you gonna keep me here?”

“However long it takes t’ satisfy Him.”

Jackson finished cleaning your wound and your leg, then began to unravel the gauze.

“I hope you understand one day. I truly do. Last thing I want is for you t’ have a bad impression of me. I have faith, though. God’ll show you the light when it’s time.”

Jackson wrapped your wound and allowed you to relax on the couch as he put away the supplies. The rest of the day, he seemed to serve you, making you lunch and dinner, letting you hobble around to test your strength, allowing you to flip through books and watch television (despite the limited channel range). Each time you wanted to move somewhere more distant than you could handle, he eagerly helped you walk. You did no chores that day, and he asked nothing of you.

During dinner that night, he offered you wine, which you took, in attempt to numb both your pain and your nerves. Having not bathed in a while, Jackson ran a bath for you, complete with bubbles and your own bath soap, as well as a bath bomb, at your own request. You had to explain to him what it was, and what it looked like, but he came back to the bathroom with it, holding it curiously in his hands.

“Is this it?”

“Mmm-hmm,” you said, nodding and dropping it into the bath. As it spun and swirled, releasing a cascade of foam, fizz, color, and odor, Jackson almost looked amazed, albeit confused.

“What’s it do? Why’s it doin’ all that?”

“It looks fun. It smells nice. It’s basically soap.”

Jackson nodded slowly, still somewhat in awe, and looked around the bathroom.

“I’ll get you a towel or two. But I forgot about your clothes. May I have permission t’ go down an’ go through your clothes? If you’re more comfortable doin’ it yourself, I can help you down t’ the basement.”

You nodded.

“Go ahead, Jackson.”

You shook your head, realizing your mistake.

“Mr. Pritchard. You have my permission, Mr. Pritchard.”

Jackson smiled and left the bathroom, returning shortly with two towels and your clothes. He left you alone to bathe, and after you’d finished your bath, dried off, and put on your clothes, he carried you down to the basement. With you in his arms as he descended the stairs, he caught a whiff if your scent.

“Hey, guess you were right,” he remarked. “Those bath bombs, ‘r whatever y’ call ‘em, they do smell mighty nice.”

You expected now to be carried toward the cage and put back in your chains, but Jackson turned in the other direction, toward the bed you had yet to sleep in. He laid you down, taking extra care not to jostle your legs.

“No cage?”

Jackson pulled the covers out from beneath you and draped them over you, his arm crossing over your body as he did so.

“Not t’night. Maybe not f’r a while. I don’t see it right t’ put you back in there after everything that’s happened today.

He leaned over you in bed, his arm crossed over your body, pinning you lightly to the bed.

“But if you get out of line,” he said, with a drastic shift in tone, “I’ll do what I have to.”

As if he’d said nothing at all, Jackson adjusted your pillow and bedsheets. He took your hand in his, and cupped his other hand over yours.

“Get a good night’s sleep t’night, sweetheart,” he said with a gentle smile. “The real lessons start t’morrow.”

He leaned down and kissed your forehead, and spoke with his lips still lightly pressed against your head.

“You’ll be one of God’s angels soon enough.”

He stood, letting go of your hand and backing away toward the stairs.

“I know you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell by now, there's a reason why I said thic fic is toeing the line. It's a captive story, one where the relationship between yourself and Jackson is going to evolve over time. Obviously, there hasn't been any sex (yet....), but I know full well that a fic like this, with this kind of storyline, will cross the line for some people. So, if the idea of building a relationship (and when I say relationship, I don't necessarily mean a couple; just that the two of you build a rapport) with Jackson, and eventually sleeping with him, knowing what he's done up to now, makes you uneasy, here's your formal warning from me to stop reading!


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